[0:00] Amen. Well, good evening again, guys. So glad to be gathered with you again today and celebrate the opportunity we have to come and to join our hearts together in song and also to look at the Word of God together.
[0:16] If you have your Bibles, turn with me to the book of Exodus. Excuse me, Exodus chapter 16. Last week, we looked very quickly at verses 1 through 12 in the 16th chapter.
[0:30] I'm going to back up, kind of get it in context and go back to verse 9, read verses 9 through 12 again. But we're going to finish up the 16th chapter in the book of Exodus. We'll be primarily focusing on verses 13 through 36.
[0:46] Again, a number of verses, but it kind of helps us to set it in context so that we can understand what's going on. But before we just jump right into it, let's open up with a word of prayer. Let's pray together.
[0:59] God, we thank you so much. Lord, we thank you that we have the opportunity to proclaim your excellencies. And Lord, to celebrate your goodness. Lord, to rejoice in the cleansing of the blood of the Lamb.
[1:13] Lord, to see it as it is recorded in the Old Testament and the great picture that it shows towards the New Testament. We pray tonight as we open up your Word, Lord, as always, that your Word would open up us.
[1:28] God, that it would be that which shines light upon our own lives. And Lord, points us to you, helps us to draw closer to you. God, we pray that the fellowship that we enjoy with you would be one that would motivate us to the rest of this week for your glory.
[1:44] And we ask it all in Jesus' name. Amen. Okay, let's get us up to speed here on where we're at in Exodus. God has set his people free. I kind of give you a Cliff Notes version, right?
[1:56] He has set his people free through the Exodus event, the Passover, the celebration of the sacrifice of the Lamb, the blood over the doorposts of the houses, and it is the judgment of God upon the nation of Egypt.
[2:09] He is setting his people free from the slavery in which they were born into. He has brought them to this place of final deliverance, that is, the Red Sea. He parted the waters.
[2:20] They crossed on dry land. And now they're in that wilderness. They're not yet where they should be because they're not yet who they should be.
[2:30] He set them free to bring them in. Remember, we picture that this morning, but we have to be mindful of that picture because it is a recurrent theme in the Old Testament, and it's a recurrent theme, especially in the book of Exodus.
[2:45] This is why I love when we get into the Old Testament because it helps us to understand these New Testament truths.
[3:00] Okay? We need to understand what we hold, and I know I'm kind of on a tangent and a side note, but it's a Sunday night and it's good to do that. We don't hold two great books. We don't hold the Old Testament and the New Testament.
[3:12] We hold one great book that tells one magnificent story, and it is seamless. It ties together. Everything in the Old Testament is there for a reason, just like everything in the New Testament is there for a reason.
[3:28] And it is amazing when we read it like that and we see it, not that, oh, we're going to go study the history of the Old Testament. No, there's just as much gospel in the Old Testament as there is in the New Testament, and there's just as much history in the New Testament as there is in the Old Testament.
[3:45] It's always right to see it as it is. This is God's book of redemptive purposes of mankind's problem, which is sin. And he gives us the pictures.
[3:56] And now there are two different ages, right, before the cross and after the cross. And we understand that, and God speaks in different ways, but that's okay. The Bible tells us in the book of Hebrews, in various ways, through various people, in a matter of times, God spoke.
[4:10] But in these last days, he has spoken to us through Jesus Christ, his son. And that's when we have the completion of the word of God. But anyhow, so we're trying to understand this.
[4:21] God is sanctifying his people in the wilderness. What should have taken them about a week's journey takes them 40 years. Because what God could make us in a week sometimes takes 40 years.
[4:33] Not because of the lack of God's ability, but sometimes as a result of our stubbornness, right? God could have gotten them to the promised land in a week's time.
[4:45] And really, just a matter of days, probably wouldn't have even taken a full week. It wasn't that long of a journey from Egypt to Canaan. It just wasn't. You can look in a map. Remember, when you're looking at a map in the back of your Bible, or you're looking at a Bible atlas, and you're zoomed in on the promised land of Canaan, and you're looking at the nation of Israel, and you're looking at it, and it takes up the whole page in your Bible.
[5:04] Well, Israel is about the size of New Jersey. Okay, so put it in context. It's about the size of New Jersey. It doesn't take that long to get from Egypt to Canaan.
[5:15] It just doesn't. But it takes that long for God to get his people prepared for Canaan. So, that's the sanctification. We are in the process, starting in the latter part of Exodus 15, chapter 16, getting into 17, really, and following through the rest of the book of Exodus.
[5:32] We have those wilderness wanderings, God sanctifying his people, making them what they should be, fitting them. As someone said, he got them out of Egypt in a moment, but it took him 40 years to get Egypt out of them.
[5:47] Now, he saves us from sin in a moment. We are redeemed. We are made new. We are completely set free. But it takes him a while to get sin out of us.
[5:59] And we see that in the sanctification process. And remember the first time or the first testing of God and his people happened very quickly. It was like three days after they crossed the Red Sea, and they came to the bitter waters of Mara.
[6:13] And they complained, and they griped, and they groaned. And God said, well, the same God who parted the sea is the same God who can purify the water. And he purified the water.
[6:24] Well, they went about two weeks again and about another short distance. And now, all of a sudden, they're hungry, and they're complaining again. And that gets us up to where we are here in chapter 16. They've been griping.
[6:35] They've been complaining. God told Moses, I'm going to provide for them. Keep this context in mind, okay? Read verses 4 and 5, and then I'm going to jump over to verse 9, okay? I just want you to read this context.
[6:46] Then the Lord said to Moses, Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you, and the people shall go out and gather a day's portion every day, here it is, that I may test them whether or not they will walk in my instruction.
[6:59] On the sixth day, when they prepare what they bring in, it will be twice as much as they gather daily. Okay? So there you go. God says, I'm going to take care of it. This is what's happening. Now we get over to verse 9.
[7:10] Then Moses said to Aaron, Say to all the congregation of the sons of Israel, Come nearer before the Lord, for he has heard your grumblings. It came about as Aaron spoke to the whole congregation and to the sons of Israel, that they looked towards the wilderness, and behold, the glory of the Lord appeared in the cloud.
[7:28] And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, I have heard the grumblings of the sons of Israel speak to them, saying, At twilight you shall eat meat, and in the morning you shall be filled with bread, and you shall know that I am the Lord your God.
[7:41] So it came about at evening that the quails came up and covered the camp, and in the morning there was a layer of dew around the camp. When the layer of dew evaporated, behold, on the surface of the wilderness there was a fine flake-like thing, fine as the frost on the ground.
[7:57] When the sons 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 which the Lord has given you to eat.
[8:08] This is what the Lord has commanded, Gather of it every man as much as he should eat. You shall take an omer apiece according to the number of persons each of you has in his tent. The sons of Israel did so, and some gathered much, and some little.
[8:21] And when they measured it with an omer, he who gathered much had no excess, and he who gathered little had no lack. Every man gathered as much as he should eat. Moses said to them, Let no man leave any of it until morning.
[8:32] But they did not listen to Moses, and some left part of it until morning, and it bred worms and became foul, and Moses was angry with them. They gathered it morning by morning, every man as much as he should eat, but when the sun grew hot, it would melt.
[8:47] Now on the sixth day they gathered twice as much bread, two omers for each one. When all the leaders of the congregation came and told Moses, then he said to them, This is what the Lord meant.
[8:57] Tomorrow is a Sabbath, by the way. First mention of the word Sabbath in your scripture. There's the law first mention, okay, so always nice to make note of that. Tomorrow is a Sabbath observance, a holy Sabbath to the Lord.
[9:12] Bake what you will bake, and boil what you will boil, and all that is left over put aside to be kept until morning. So they put it aside until morning as Moses had ordered, and it did not become foul, nor was there any worm in it.
[9:23] Moses said, Eat it today, for today is the Sabbath to the Lord. Today you will not find it in the field. Six days you shall gather it, but on the seventh day, the Sabbath, there will be none.
[9:35] It came about on the seventh day that some of the people went out to gather, but they found none. Then the Lord said to Moses, How long do you refuse to keep my commandments and my instructions? See, the Lord has given you the Sabbath, therefore he gives you bread for two days on the sixth day.
[9:50] Remain 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. The house of Israel named it manna, and it was like coriander seed, white, and its taste was like wafers with honey.
[10:06] Then Moses said, This is what the Lord has commanded. Let an omer full of it be kept throughout your generations, that they may see the bread that I fed you in the wilderness when I brought you out of the land of Egypt.
[10:17] Moses said to Aaron, Take a jar and put an omer full of manna in it and place it before the Lord to be kept throughout your generations. As the Lord commanded Moses, so Aaron placed it before the testimony to be kept.
[10:29] The sons of Israel ate the manna forty years until they came to an inhabitant land. They ate the manna until they came to the border of the land of Canaan. Now an omer is a tenth of an ephah.
[10:42] Okay, here we see God's provision of what the psalmist says, the bread of the angels, the angels' food. We know from the book of Hebrews, I believe it's Hebrews chapter 9, that the jar in which they put before the testimony was a golden jar.
[10:59] It is one of the three things that was in the Ark of the Covenant. You had a golden jar full of manna, you had the two tablets of stone, and you have Aaron's rod that budded.
[11:09] Some say you had the tablets of stone to signify that the Lord God is the lawgiver and the judge. You have the jar of manna signifying that God is the provider of the bread.
[11:23] And you have the rod that budded to show that God is the distinguisher of and the one who establishes the high priest. Remember, there was the question, who was going to serve as high priest? And they put the rods down and whichever rod budded, and then that was the one that God chose.
[11:37] So you have the law, the priesthood, and the provision all represented in the Ark of the Covenant. Don't ask me where those things are today. I don't know. Some people will tell you it's in Ethiopia.
[11:48] Some people will tell you it's somewhere else. I don't know. Nobody knows. Okay? And I've even been asked the question, will we have one in the new heaven and the new earth? Because you find the Ark of the Covenant in the Book of Revelations.
[12:01] And again, my interpretation of that is a little bit different. I don't think it's a literal Ark as they had then, because I think that's a Jewish thing. I just, that's a whole different sermon.
[12:12] Billy Joe, stay off of that one, okay? Sorry, getting a little on the squirrel trail there. But anyway, so we're coming to this beautiful picture of where we're introduced for the first time to manna.
[12:25] Something that's going to play just an instrumental role throughout the history of the nation of Israel. Something that is going to be of utmost importance to them. And this is the first time they're going to learn this lesson in the wilderness.
[12:38] And I want you to see how they learned to live in, or to behave in, trusting in the provisions of the Lord. I want us to see tonight what it looks like to be trusting in the provisions of the Lord.
[12:52] Because God is meeting a very great need. And he says there are two reasons he's doing it, okay? We want to keep them in context. We want to look at this.
[13:03] He told Moses, I'm going to meet this need to test them. Does God put you to the test? Yes, he doesn't tempt you, but he sure can test us, okay?
[13:14] He says, I'm going to do it. I mean, it's on the beginning. He says, I'm going to do this to test them, to see if they will obey me, to see if they will obey my commands. And he says, I'm going to provide it so that they may know that I am the Lord, their God, okay?
[13:28] Every provision of God is a revelation of God. We'll get to all these things in a minute. The reason I pointed out to you that this is the first mention of the Sabbath. The book of Genesis refers to the seventh day.
[13:40] On the seventh day, God rested. This is the first time the word Sabbath is introduced. And it's also pre-Mount Sinai. What happened at Mount Sinai? The giving of the law, the giving of the Ten Commandments.
[13:51] So this is something that God had in store for his people before he gave them the law, this thing of rest, okay? Now, the Sabbath is something that is, I have some people asking, do we still keep the Sabbath today?
[14:04] Do we still do that? The Sabbath was something very particular or peculiar for the Jewish people to demonstrate the covenant they had with their God, okay? It's a Jewish thing. Keep the Sabbath to show the world that you're my people.
[14:16] You're going to close your business down. You're going to look different one day a week. The world's going to come in, and they're going to try to do business with you, and you're going to say, nope, we don't do that. We're peculiar. I was reading a book today that said, we have to be careful as believers.
[14:29] Now, this book was written in the 1960s, so how much more applicable today? We have to be careful of trying to fit in with the world, because the great call of Christianity and the great call of God's people has always been the fact that they are different.
[14:45] And it is the difference that has always attracted people to Jesus Christ. People were attracted to Christ because he was different. And this is something that God establishes for his people, and one of the things he does for the Jewish nation is the keeping of the Sabbath.
[14:59] Now, I'm not to say we shouldn't rest. God says we should rest, okay? But we go on. I want you to see four things tonight about the trusting in the provisions of God.
[15:12] God's going to reveal something about himself. He's going to reveal something about themselves. He's going to show us something, how it is to live in the daily provisions he gives. Now, we're really looking at this on a bigger scale, okay?
[15:24] Let's take it all the way to where we're at on Wednesday nights in the Gospel of John. We're getting towards the closing chapters of it, but again, telling you that every Old Testament picture has a New Testament fulfillment.
[15:38] The picture of the man, and Jesus says what? I am the bread of heaven. I am the bread of heaven that has come down. Remember after he fed the 5,000, they said, show us that you are greater than Moses.
[15:50] Give us bread out of heaven. And Jesus looked at him and said, I'm the bread of heaven. You ate the man in the wilderness and they died. You eat me, you take of this bread that is of me, and you will live eternally.
[16:01] There are people who ate man in the wilderness and died. They ate it for 40 years and died. I mean, that was just a temporary provision. But he is the great provision. He is the fulfillment of this. So when we look at this, what it's like to trust in these provisions, we see the ultimate fulfillment in Jesus Christ.
[16:16] Number one, the provisions of God are first and foremost supernatural. His provisions are supernatural. Look at what he says.
[16:27] He's very clear here. God says, all right, Moses, gather the people around. So Moses says to Aaron, he says, Aaron, get everybody over here. Now, again, we're looking at a very great multitude of people.
[16:39] Probably most people estimate somewhere around 2 million people. Okay, that's a large group. But we always need to keep in mind, too, I don't know if you've noticed this, but when you go to the Old Testament, it's amazing.
[16:50] Every time you see God's people gathered together, there's always what is called a mixed multitude that is non-Jewish people. Remember when they left Egypt, there was a mixed multitude. Now, the mixed multitude often causes problems, but it's often there, too, okay?
[17:05] This mixed multitude is part of the rebellion with Korah and others that we will see later. But there's this mixed multitude, so there's the non-Jewish people there. And when you read the book of Ezra, and they're coming out of the Babylonian captivity, coming back to rebuild the temple.
[17:21] Remember that? We went to Ezra chapters 1 through 6. When they came back, there was a mixed multitude that couldn't prove their genealogy. They couldn't prove that they belonged to the Jewish people. God has never just kind of separated himself for only a peculiar set of people, though he chose a set of people to reveal himself.
[17:38] So don't ever let anyone tell you that the God of the Old Testament is strictly a Jewish God. No, he used the Jewish people to be everybody's God. That's what's amazing about it when you read it. There's always this mixed multitude. So you're looking at all these people around, and they're like, hey, guys, gather around.
[17:52] And they come around, and there's Moses that's over here. And this is one of the great things that we see that happens in all the wilderness wanderings. All of a sudden, the glory of the Lord shows up in the cloud.
[18:04] And they see God meeting with Moses. They don't see him as a man, but they see the glory of God meeting with Moses. That's pretty cool, right?
[18:14] I mean, that's phenomenal. That's like, well, I'm going to listen to Moses when he comes back over here because last time I saw him, he was hanging out with God, and the glory of God was around him. So whatever he heard over there, I want to hear what he says over here.
[18:27] So he's meeting with God here, and God gives this great promise. God says they're hungry, huh? Now, I don't want to make it too kind of casual, but God says they will eat meat tonight, and they'll eat bread in the morning.
[18:39] Those are very specific promises. God says I'm going to provide. Now, put you in the place. Put you where you're at. They're in the wilderness. They're out there in this desolate land. There's no water around.
[18:50] You know, it's amazing when you start reading of the tabernacle they built, the tortoise skins they used. I mean, God just had a way of providing things. But anyhow, we'll get to that later. But God says, okay, they're complaining because they don't have meat, and they don't have bread.
[19:03] This is what I'm going to do. You're going to eat meat tonight, and you're going to eat bread in the morning so that you may know that I'm God. You know what I have found out in Scripture? God not only tests man, but God gives man the opportunity to test him.
[19:18] You ever notice that? God gives very detailed promises throughout Scripture. God says, always. God says, put blood over the doorposts of your houses and see if the death angel doesn't pass over you.
[19:32] That's a test, right? Trust me in this. Test me. See if I'm not right. God always gives you an opportunity. One of the greatest things that I ever tell people is, you know what?
[19:46] If you're having questions and concerns about Jesus Christ and whether or not you can trust him with your life, I always just tell them, why don't you try it? Why don't you see how it works?
[19:56] Because what I have found is he's a whole lot better master of your life than I'm a master of my life. You know, and see how he provides. See how he takes care of it. Here it is. God gives this great test to them.
[20:09] He says, I'm going to give you meat and bread so that you may know. And now these are very clear markers, right? If we don't eat meat tonight and we're not eating bread in the morning, then he's not who he says he is.
[20:21] But God is a God of supernatural. So then verse 13 says, so, so it came. What happened? So it came about. God said it, so it came about.
[20:33] This is one thing you need to know about the promises of scripture. When God says something, it will come about. Okay? The Bible tells us that the word of God does not return void.
[20:43] That whatever God sends it forth for, it will accomplish what he wants it to accomplish. It will not come back empty. It will not fall short. When God makes a promise, a declaration, it will come about.
[20:56] And God says, you're eating meat tonight. So it came about. Why is this important? Because we read things in the New Testament. We read things in the Old Testament, especially when we get into the book of Isaiah, the book of Ezekiel.
[21:08] When we get over into the New Testament and we start seeing things, especially that Paul writes of the latter days, the first and second Thessalonians, and we get into the book of Revelations, there are all these promises.
[21:19] Peter writes of these promises and all these things that God says is going to come about. And guess what? It will come about. Just because we haven't seen it yet doesn't mean God has failed in his promise.
[21:31] It will come about. God has promised that this world will be destroyed. God has promised that he will make all things new. God has promised that there is a life to come. There is a world to be where we would neither need neither sun nor moon because his presence will be the glory.
[21:46] God has promised us a city that is magnificent in scope, which gates will always be open. And it will come about because when God says something, he always says it in great detail. That's why he had John measured out on the island of Patmos.
[21:58] And he will always bring it about just as he said it was. So it came about that evening that the quails came. I love the simplicity of that. I love just how it's just simple.
[22:10] It just happened. Where did they come from? It doesn't matter. How many of them were? Enough to feed two million? How could they catch them? I guess they've been flying a while. When these quails showed up, their wings were tired.
[22:22] I mean, all you need to know because we can sit here and beat our heads on the desk all day long trying to figure out. I've read the books. Where did the quail come from? Where did this come from? Where did it? It came about because God is the author of creation.
[22:35] And when God tells quail to go here, guess what? Quail goes there. God said, Hey, listen, I need to feed this multitude of people over here and I promised on meat so the best thing for them to eat would be quail right now because if you fly this far, your wings will be tired and it is just, you know, you'll be easy to catch.
[22:50] So here you go, fly all the way over here, land in this camp and be eaten. It's amazing. It's supernatural. Supernatural.
[23:01] I don't know a whole lot about, I don't do a lot of bird hunting but one thing I have found is that birds don't always have a habit, especially if they're used to being in the wilderness where there's not anybody, they don't always have a habit of just landing among a bunch of people.
[23:15] You know, a kind of bird brain if you think about it. But it lands there. And it says, and then they woke up the next morning and there was, I love the wording again, I'm always paying attention to the wording scripture. There was dew about the camp.
[23:29] It was just around the camp. And when the dew rose, there was something on the ground. This fine, flake-like substance.
[23:40] You know what manna means? The literal meaning of manna is what is it? That's what it means. The translation of manna is what is it? And the reason they named it that is because that's what they asked.
[23:52] What is it? It's kind of a play on words because in the original language that's like M-A-N, man, H space, H-U, man-huh. Like, what is that? And they walk out here.
[24:04] And this is something else we need to understand, okay, because there's a lot of people who try to figure out what this is. There is no, no explanation for what manna is.
[24:14] there is no known substance among us of what it could have been. It's something that God created for his people for a specific time, for a specific purpose.
[24:27] It was God's provisions for them there. We know it because there is nothing in existence that would have fed that number of people that long. There is nothing in existence that would have had to require this much room for Moses to try to explain it.
[24:42] If it was something familiar to them, if it was something that his audience would have known about, he could have just said, well, we woke up and we saw this out there. You know, we saw the bark off of this tree is what some people have tried to say. Or we saw the moss that was growing on this out there.
[24:55] He could have just very easily, he wouldn't have had to say it was a fine, flake-like substance that was white, but it was like corn or seed. And then when you taste it, it's kind of like honey. I mean, he wouldn't have had to go into so much explanation.
[25:07] He was trying to explain and define something that was unexplainable. What you find with a manna is that God is providing something supernaturally. And I want you to understand this.
[25:18] In the supernatural provisions of God, God is not limited by the means around him to provide for his people. He can provide meat through something very normal, such as quail, and he can provide bread by something of his own creation for his people at a specific time.
[25:33] But every provision of God is supernatural. And when you're living in the provisions of the Lord, friend, listen to me, he is not constrained by anything to provide for you the same way.
[25:46] Every day. We look at our life sometimes and we say, there's no way, there's absolutely nothing for the Lord to work with here. I don't see how God can do it.
[25:56] I don't see how it can happen. And I would say that that is probably, at times, the best place to be. Because when you're in the wilderness and there's nothing for God to work with, you know when it shows up that God did it for you.
[26:10] And he created something special to provide for you. And that reminds us, listen, the thing that comes by ordinary means is just as much supernatural when you're living in the resurrected life as the thing that comes by extraordinary means that you have no definition for it.
[26:34] There are some things in your life you'll just have to look at and go, what is it? That's God's way of providing for you at that time. And then there are some times where you look up and go, oh, that's quail.
[26:45] I know what that is. I know how to fix that. So the first and foremost thing is his provisions are supernatural. Number two, we also see that his provisions are sufficient.
[26:56] His provisions are sufficient. They look at this, this dew on the ground, the dew rises and there's this substance and then Moses looks at him and says, okay, go gather it. Now this is something you need to understand here because it says in verse 16, this is what the Lord has commanded.
[27:11] Gather of it every man as much as he should eat. Just stop right there. Just because God provides, it doesn't mean that man is free to do nothing. The Bible has a lot of talk about people who could physically do something but choose to do nothing and it actually says that man doesn't eat.
[27:31] God made a great provision but here's the thing. God had the manna on the ground but the man had to get out of the tent to go gather the manna. Okay? Everything they needed was laying outside.
[27:45] God didn't bring it and put it in a bowl and set it in a tent. Okay? He didn't do that. He put it within reach and then commanded man to go get it and man couldn't get it in the heat of the day because by that time it was gone which means he had to wake up early to go get it, right?
[27:58] They're in the desert, it gets hot quick. It says as soon as the sun rose up and it got hot it would melt away. So here's one thing we need to understand about the Lord's provisions. God is not constrained to make it easy for you.
[28:09] He's just constrained and he desires to make it available to you. And he puts it within reach. But if we're going to be slothful or lazy about gathering it then God is not guilty of not providing it.
[28:27] Sometimes God has provided all we need in his word. And he's given it to us within reach especially in our own nation. And how many houses exist with the very provisions of God for their life within reach and it sets close collecting dust and it's right there and they're mad at God because God's not telling them what it is they should do and they don't know the will of God for their life and it doesn't seem like they see God moving in their life and God doesn't hear them when they pray and they get so angry because it seems like God's not there and God says I'm there you're just not gathering.
[29:05] Everything you need is right there within reach. You just won't gather it. You won't get it. God provides things supernaturally but man has the responsibility of receiving it.
[29:22] And we see here we're looking at it as being sufficient. So Moses said okay here you go he says go gather as much as you should eat. Take you shall take an omer apiece. Nobody really knows what an omer is okay I can't tell you what the measurement I know it's kind of been guessed but we really don't know the dry measurement scale of the Jewish people.
[29:41] An omer apiece according to the number of persons each of you has in his tent. The sons of Israel did so and some gathered much and some little and when they measured it with an omer he who had gathered much had no excess and he who had gathered little had no lack.
[29:55] Every man gathered as much as he should eat. What I want you to see here is that the provisions of God are sufficient. If you are willing to get up and gather what God has provided you don't have to worry there's not going to be enough.
[30:10] Okay? I don't ever concern myself God do you have enough time for me today? God I've got a great amount of problems it doesn't bother me I hope that the Lord is speaking to you the same time he's speaking to me but he is sufficient to provide for us all at the same time.
[30:26] I don't have to worry about that. Okay? The man is around the camp and you don't have to worry about it you don't have to go out there gathering up a whole lot you don't have to go up there hoarding it up we'll get to that in just a minute but there is enough.
[30:39] You don't have to worry. When God provides he always provides a sufficient amount. And I love the picture it says an omer apiece right however many is in your house so like in my household right now we're kind of back to normal so we're down to six no let's see we're down to five five again because Hunter just went back to Chattanooga so that would be five omers for us in the morning it would have been six omers this morning and we would have had that amount but then there's this picture Paul uses this picture right?
[31:07] He who reaps much and he who reaps little everybody has enough because we share all things in common but look at what it says in verse 18 when they measured it with an omer he who had gathered much had no excess and he who had gathered little had no lack you know what the picture is here is that after everybody got together everybody went out there was like running out there scooping it up after everybody scooped it up they all came back and they divided it up among themselves now maybe you worked a little bit harder than me maybe you picked up ten omer fools that day and I only picked up four omer fools and maybe my family is bigger than you and I'm not saying it was lazy maybe just physically wasn't able to do much but when we all came together we divided it up and after dividing it up we all had enough because this is something else I have found you don't have to be stingy with the provisions of God because whatever God is providing you he's providing you to share with the people around you because he has a sufficient amount for you and for those around you that was the principle Paul used the same verse to teach a church to give he says your excess is going to supply in their lack because their excess of faith he was writing to a non-Jewish church he was writing to a Gentile church about the church in Jerusalem he says the church in Jerusalem is hurting right now people because it's hard to be a church in Jerusalem because when you became a Christian in Jerusalem everybody excommunicated you the Jewish people would no longer do business with you so they got on financial hard times and he's writing to the Gentile churches and he's like listen their excess of faith has given you your faith now you need to give your excess of money because of their lack of money because we want to share with those around us because God is providing you the financial resources so that you can meet their physical need and he's provided them the spiritual resources so that they can meet your spiritual need and nobody can have any lack of anything this is a beautiful thing that you have throughout the church is that people would share all things and they had all things in common and God was being magnified in their presence it's amazing how that works right and this is when they realized listen what God provides for me is sufficient and he's also allowed me to share it with those around me it's amazing brother I know you just finished reading a book by Francis Chan an old book by Francis Chan called Crazy Love
[33:27] I remember Francis Chan was pastoring a church in California he's no longer there but he went to the church and he just had read these scriptures and he said okay this is what I'm going to do he had founded this church it's a pretty large church actually fairly large he said this is what I want to do guys I want us to take the Bible serious and they're like okay it's great he's meeting with the leadership of the church what we call the deacons a number of them he says okay so this is what I want to do and he was telling this story I was listening to him he said I'm going to not put money in retirement anymore and I'm not going to have health care anymore and I'm going to trust you guys if something happens to my family you will meet my family if something happens to me take care of my family and if something happens you know you'll be my retirement I'm going to quit investing in the world and I'm going to invest in the church and he says I'm going to ask you guys to do the same thing and guess what everyone done it all the men said sounds great to me I'd rather trust the church than trust the world any day so they began to invest in one another and he's like yeah so Jim if something happens in your family then the rest of us we're going to take care of your family and Bob if you die and you don't have any life insurance then we'll be sure to meet your family's needs and Larry if something then we'll meet your family they began to trust one another and man the church exploded and began to grow and here's the thing he left that church he's no longer pastoring that church but guess what he's still connected to that church and he still has the same debt to those people in that church and you say that's crazy sounds biblical doesn't it it's pretty wild how biblical things sound crazy in today's time but this is what
[35:13] I want you to understand that's what they're doing around the world when people come to Christ they're really betting on the church and they're betting on these principles that say what I'm gathering today is going to be enough for you it's going to be enough for me the provisions of God are sufficient they're sufficient and it's pretty wild when it happens I'll tell you what happens God keeps providing keeps showing up and God keeps sustaining and God keeps going okay not only were his provisions supernatural not only were his provisions sufficient number three his provisions are satisfying satisfying kind of jumping ahead a little bit because I'm going to come back and catch some of this in just a moment it is unique how Moses describes this stuff he says in verse 31 the house of
[36:13] Israel named it manna and it was like coriander seed white and its taste was like wafers with honey so he's talking about this thing that was satisfying to the palate something that he could relate to some have estimated that an omer was like two quarts okay again that's just a guess we don't really know but that kind of gives you a picture that you can put it in today so like a quart jar so like two quarts per person and that's all they had every day to fuel them for a day's worth of marching in the wilderness and it says that God gave it to them for 40 years every day they got up every day it was there every day they got up every day it was there it said for 40 years the Lord provided for this how we know it was kind of put together towards the end of that wilderness wonderings it says in verse 35 the sons of Israel ate the manna 40 years until they came to an!
[37:17] Remember right before the battle of Jericho they finally ate of the fruit of the land okay and it says we read that in the book of Judges the manna stopped what I want you to see is what God provided for them supernaturally satisfied their need until he provided for them naturally God's provisions never ran out and it satisfied their need Now satisfied is a whole lot different than desire to satisfy a need is to meet a need to the point of contentment to desire something is to long for something because of taste and quality to the point of excess I'm not saying that the nation of Israel was always happy with the manna remember there comes a time where they get real upset and we'll get to it later where they're like we just happy with what
[38:20] God is trying to satisfy us with so God a second time sends them quail and they get meat so you don't want bread today here you go have some meat remember that time when they eat the meat when it was in their mouth it became foul and they got sick so when they sought to satisfy themselves outside of what God was providing for them it did harm to their body because what God was providing was what was satisfying to them so we need to be careful when we're living out in the provisions of the Lord what God provides will satisfy what we need but when we begin to step outside the realm and seek our own provisions!
[39:07] or to seek our own desires those things will get rank very quick because God's provisions satisfy number four and finally not only his provisions are supernatural not only his provisions are sufficient his provisions are satisfying number four his provisions!
[39:27] are a sign are a sign now this is where we kind of tie the whole passage together this is why I kind of skipped over it for just a moment God told them I'm going to provide meat for you tonight and bread for you in the morning so that you may know that I am the Lord so again we have this picture it is a sign when they saw the quail that evening it was like huh and they got up and they said yeah well that's that's okay so maybe that was a fluke here's some birds but what I want to know is where is God going to get grain so we can make some bread you know it's one thing for quail to fly into camp it's a whole other thing for a whole lot of grain heads to come flying in on the wind and land you know but they wake up the next morning and all of a sudden here's this very newly created newly formed stuff that wasn't there before and now all of a sudden they're eating bread so it is a sign to the reality of God that's the first thing I want you to see it is a satisfying sign to he says I am God I'm showing you I am the Lord your God and not only is it a sign to his existence and a sign to his power but we need to understand this too the provisions of God do not only serve as a sign to who he is they also serve as a sign to who we really are because what we do and how we respond to the provisions of God are a clear sign or a clear testimony to who we really are because the first thing God said was I will provide so that I can test he's about to give them what we call the ten commandments actually he's about to lay out the greatest law on the face of the earth the greatest standard of holy living he's about to write it with his own hand he's about to make a covenant he is about to enter into a covenant with mankind
[41:24] I will be your God and you will be my people if you will obey my voice there's this great covenant now that covenant was dependent upon their obedience God was going to be faithful to his side but the covenant relationship when you read the book of Exodus and you really get into the book of Deuteronomy which is the second telling of the law near the end of the book of Deuteronomy you have what is called the blessings and cursing chapter like God will bless you if you do this and he will curse you if you do this now when they go into the promised land there are two mountains one is a mount of blessing and one is a mount of cursing and they were to set up these testimonies in front of them so that they would have a visible representation that if we obey God will bless but if we rebel God will curse and God says I'm going to be the same all the time the outcome is dependent upon your obedience to who I am I'm always going to be holy he's about to lay all that out but he's going to test them with something simple first because he wanted by his provisions to show them what he already knew about them is he was going to lay out a lot of stuff and they couldn't even obey him in the simplest of matters you say how do you say
[42:36] God says I'm going to give you bread I'll give you meat to eat tonight and bread in the morning and then he says and the bread will come every day so they're standing there and all of a sudden the quail come in I didn't see that coming here's some quail we're eating meat tonight they wake up the next morning there's bread on the ground now wait a minute God had said I will continue to provide bread here's the first test do you believe that the God who provided quail last night and bread this morning is going to be able to provide bread in the morning some didn't you know how we know they didn't because they kept some some were afraid it wasn't going to be there in the morning Moses said get what you need for today and eat it it will be there in the morning some of them said well I'm going to keep a little bit back just in case my friend when we start living just in case we're doubting God's faithfulness and I know that's a hard thing to say in our own nation but that's the reality of it as
[43:49] Tony Evans says the rest of the world is not accustomed to opening up their refrigerators and their pantries and seeing what they have for the next five days to eat because the reality of give us this day our daily bread is a reality that most of the world lives in the rest of the world does not live in the existence of well if something happens today I'll be okay you know for a few weeks or a few months because the reality is is what they have today is sufficient for the day but here's the dangerous ground I know it kind of treads on I'm not talking about not being good stewards I know we got this balance right we have this balance but sometimes I think we need to pull back and see where we have Americanized our faith rather than Biblicized our faith when the provisions we are relying on are those things we have put back just in case God doesn't provide we are treading on dangerous ground God says
[44:52] I've got you today I've got you tomorrow I've got you the next day I've got you the day after that and they say well the meat was good last night the bread is good this morning and we are going to keep a little bit back in case you don't show up test one felt you know what that showed they didn't really trust God they trusted him in the moment but they didn't trust him for the next moment they didn't really trust him they kind of trusted him but they all you know they weren't really a hundred percent into it okay God says alright so that turns sour it gets bad worms grow in it Moses gets mad and says I told you it was going to be there so he gives them bread the next day and it's good well here comes the next test here's where the sign is going to show them God says okay you can't keep any over but on the sixth day gather twice as much and go ahead and cook it it'll be okay tomorrow because on the Sabbath the seventh day there's not going to be any out there so now we got the other end of the spectrum okay
[46:08] God said don't keep any because I'll be here in the morning it'll be there but then he says but now there's one day a week where you can keep some and it's not going to go bad because there's not going to be there in the morning because I want you to rest in the morning so we got to see do we really believe God do we really trust him so they gather twice as much and it doesn't but then we find but some of them went out on the Sabbath and looked for it and man it wasn't there and now God gets mad Moses is mad when they kept some God gets mad when they go looking for some because listen when God says no God means no when God opens a door no man can shut it and when God shuts a door no man can open it we find that in the book of Revelations God says it's not going to be there go rest the first thing is they did not trust that God would be there in the morning the second thing is is they did not trust that God could sustain what they kept the day before either way the provisions of the Lord are a sign to the reality of man we're not dealing with manna we're dealing with different things and I'm wrapping up and I'm closing how we handle what he provides is always a sign to who he is and really a sign to who we are it is always a sign he shows us something about himself and through that he always shows us something about ourselves and he's not doing it to be mean he's not doing it to be ugly he's doing it because he's about to do something greater and he wants us to be ready for the greater so that we can know you know what sometimes I struggle with this thing called obedience
[48:06] I struggle with this thing called surrender I struggle with this thing called just casting everything upon him and by the way that's what salvation is right you can't trust Jesus today as your savior and trust that tomorrow your deeds will save you you have to trust what he provided on the cross is sufficient for the day it's going to be sufficient tomorrow it's going to be sufficient the next day it's going to be sufficient the next day it's going to be sufficient the next day the cross is all we need let's pray Lord I thank you so much for this night God I thank you for your word and I pray that you continue to let these truths resonate Lord even in my own life Lord as I see the areas where I fall short Lord I see the lack of trust that I often exhibit Lord that I would live a life of surrender for your glory for your honor and for your purposes and ask it all in Jesus name Amen If you're able you can stand and turn to page 294 and we'll sing the first, second and fourth verse page 294 have thine own way
[49:34] Lord have thine own way thou art the water I am the clay mold me and make me after thy will while I am waiting yielded and still have thine own way Lord have thine own way search me and try me master today whiter than snow whiter than snow Lord wash me just now as in thy presence humbly I bow have thine own way Lord have thine own way hold o'er my being absolute sway fill with thy spirit till all shall see
[50:51] Christ only always living in me and I want to thank you God so much for your time tonight Mr. help me on the name of that family just to hear prayer for you a 16 year old Lord County boy with the one I was doing when I passed away yesterday they've been sick all I've heard they've just been sick and they've been treating him for different things since Christmas and they're living on the side and having all these thoughts but it's a shame filled because it's not in the book filled with the brother and sister in prayer I'm going to get out here I'm going to get out here in prayer filled with family with that son-in-law anyone else anything before we leave dear heavenly father father we thank you for this opportunity to gather thank you for your presence here thank you for who you are father we thank you for all that that you provide for us you provide for us in so many ways thank you for the sufficiency and for the satisfaction of the provision father we pray for your forgiveness where we have not always trusted in your ability or will to provide for us whereas you show throughout the bible you're a god of your word and your god provides father we thank you for that we glorify you for that father we pray for the field's family and for those that are church that are hurting who have sorrow father we pray for comfort in the name of our word see your
[52:46] Jesus Christ we pray amen daddy Thank you.
[53:18] Thank you. Thank you.
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[57:48] Thank you.