The Lord who Provides

'The battle for hearts and minds': that's the language that theUShas used in it's wars inIraqandAfghanistan.  They know that even though they've toppled regimes there that were unpopular they have no guarantee of winning the affections of the people.  So they've talked as though there were two battles to win – first to destroy the regimes that oppressed the people, and second to convince the people that they could be trusted – the battle for their hearts and minds.

As it happens the first battle was relatively easy, but they're finding it almost impossible to win the second.  They talk of winning the hearts and minds, but whatever good they do is very quickly forgotten every time we see a you-tube video of marines urinating on bodies, or pictures of abuse in prison camps, every time they need to engage in any military action…  They may say that the bad is trivial in comparison to the good they have done, the sacrifices they've made etc.  but they keep hearing the locals say 'yes, but what have you done for us lately?'

Now I don't think thatAmericaorBritainhave completely clean hands inIraqorAfghanistan, so don't mishear me, but in this struggle to win hearts and minds they are facing more or less the same situation that God faced when he ledIsraelout ofEgypt.  – Don't miss hear me, I don't mean that God had mixed motives or suspect behaviour, we know that's not true. But for all that God did for the people of Israel it seems that they were always keeping him at arms length, no matter how spectacular his rescue, how devoted his love, how obvious his provision he could not win the affections of the people of Israel.  They kept looking longingly back toEgypt.

But God didn't rescueIsraelto set them up in their own place as their own people.  He rescued them to be his, to be his very own, his special people.  So it is that we've had the Exodus now, they're out ofEgypt, but there's still almost two thirds of the book to go.

Exodus simply means 'departure, or exit'.  And at this stage they're out.  God has destroyedEgyptwith plagues, killed the firstborn of every family in the Passover and wiped out the army in the crossing of the red sea. Israelhas plundered the Egyptians and walked free, they're safe on the other side of the sea with all their possessions, their flocks and herds and even the valuables of their neighbours.  They've done the Exodus, the Exit is as complete as it can be.

And yet the book continues, and they've got a long way to go. They won't get into the Promised Land for another 4 books and 40 years.  What's going on, what's left to do?

God has unseated the tyrant, but he is only just beginning in the battle for their hearts and minds.  From here on in we see God wooing the people to himself, leading them by chords of loving kindness to be his very own.  He teaches them over and over that they are his.  But they will not be won over, they will not be led, they will not serve him… but I'm getting ahead of myself.

The big idea in the passage we come to today is the big idea in the rest of Exodus – this is the turning point – God has brought them out of Egypt, but for a purpose, not just to be free of Pharaoh, but to be his people.  Now he is going to test them and try them in the desert so that they can learn to trust him and be his.

The passage breaks down into roughly three sections, so we'll take each of them in turn and see three things:

1)  Israel's Shameful Ingratitude in Grumbling against God (verses 1-8)

2)  God's Gracious Response of Provision (verses 4-16); and

3)  God's Testing Meets with Mixed Results (verses 17-35)

The first section sadly sets the tone for the behaviour ofIsrael, they're barely out ofEgypt, only a couple of days walk from the scene of their great rescue through the sea, and already they're starting to grumble.  So we see, point one:

1)  Israel's Shameful Ingratitude in Grumbling against God (verse 1-3; 6-8)

Read Verses 1-8

1 The whole Israelite community set out from Elim and came to the Desert of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month after they had come out of Egypt. 2 In the desert the whole community grumbled against Moses and Aaron. 3 The Israelites said to them, "If only we had died by the LORD's hand in Egypt! There we sat round pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death."  4 Then the LORD said to Moses, "I will rain down bread from heaven for you. The people are to go out each day and gather enough for that day. In this way I will test them and see whether they will follow my instructions. 5 On the sixth day they are to prepare what they bring in, and that is to be twice as much as they gather on the other days." 6 So Moses and Aaron said to all the Israelites, "In the evening you will know that it was the LORD who brought you out of Egypt, 7 and in the morning you will see the glory of the LORD, because he has heard your grumbling against him. Who are we, that you should grumble against us?" 8 Moses also said, "You will know that it was the LORD when he gives you meat to eat in the evening and all the bread you want in the morning, because he has heard your grumbling against him. Who are we? You are not grumbling against us, but against the LORD."

We need to acknowledge that they are in a tight spot. The desert is no walk in the park.  There was a short route that went across the top of the desert and took only a few days, they could have done that way.  But, in his mercy God hasn't taken them that way because it would lead to almost immediate war with the Philistines (Exodus 13.17). So instead they find themselves venturing through a desert – a proper dry, hot, deadly desert.  There almost nothing by way of food, and even less by way of water.  It's horrible, frightening and dispiriting.

But even so we have to see they really ought to have more faith in God.  Notice the date – why does verse one tell us the date?  They were to date their time from the time that God started to rescue them in Egypt.  Exodus 12 verse 3 says to commemorate the Passover starting on the 10th of the month.   Verse 1 says it's now 'the fifteenth day of the second month'.  That makes this only a few weeks from the Passover and their escape through the red sea!  Only a few weeks!  In such a short time how could they forget what God has done?

They really should remember better: Remember the cloud and the pillar of fire, God is visibly with them.  Talk about a memory aide, for crying out loud, God was travelling with them. Remember the exodus, the plagues, the red sea, God's amazing rescue.  Surely they can not doubt his power to provide for them having seen his power to deliver them? RememberEgypt– they remember the meat, they remember eating all the food they wanted – but haven't they forgotten the more important things? They forget the oppression and the genocide, they forget the beatings, the demands for work, work, work. They forget the bricks without straw.  And maybe we can understand that, but how could they forget being ordered to thow all their male babies into the river to drown? Egyptwasn't what they remember it to be, Pharaoh was a homicidal maniac, he hated them and wanted to destroy them.  But just weeks later they're beginning to suggest that his brutal rule would be preferable to God's (apparently barren) rescue!  

Think about how ungrateful and untrusting they are.  After all God has done for them, after all the miracles they've seen, with God's very presence leading them, do they really think that God hasn't planned this through and that now he's going to start to let them down?

Let me try and help you to see how shocking this is.  Imagine an innocent man who's been wrongly imprisoned for life.  Imagine you found out about his case and decided to do something about it – through trawling through court transcripts and police files you realised that not only is he innocent but you could prove it in court (I can't help but think of Rubin Carter as I say that, that's what happened to him, if you've ever seen the movie 'the Hurricane' you'll know what I'm talking about…) Imagine that you invest all you have, your money and your time and after enormous efforts you manage to get him released.

Now imagine that fateful day arrives when you go to meet him at the prison gate and welcome him back into the world.  And he sees you there and he goes mental, not in joy, but in rage at you – 'how dare you, how could you, you've ruined my life, I got regular meals in there, we had an exercise yard, I had my own bed'…. on and on he goes and never a word of thanks…

That would be shocking wouldn't it?  Surely you should be his hero, his new best friend, surely you deserve thanks and praise and gratitude…  Can you begin to see the depth of the Israelites ingratitude here?  They've been rescued from a living death, but they can't remember how bad it was, all they can remember was getting meat to eat, and what has God done for us lately?

And if you haven't recognised yourself in this story yet what we are seeing here is true history, and it's a striking picture of sin.  This is the bible as a mirror to us, to our character, to our sin.  We yearn for sin just as the Israelites yearned forEgypt.  We regularly forget God's love and provision, we forget that sin always lands us in trouble, and we imagine we'd be better off if we could just get on with it!  Stop and think for just a second, all sin is turning away from trust in God and believing the lie that we'll be better off if we do what we want. And we believe that?  That's like the Israelites wanting to go back toEgypt, back to the land of slavery, back to the land of living death.  Why would we want that?  Why do we believe the lies of sin?  We need to repent of our desires and turn away from sin, minute by minute, hour by hour.  We need to remember what God has done for us and see the lies that stand behind our petty temptations, or we will fall into disobedience and unbelief just as they did.  And we need to call on God to strengthen us by his spirit to stand firm in the face of temptation.

It's a good thing for us that God treats us not dissimilarly to the way he treatedIsrael, and that takes us on to point two:

2)  God's Gracious Response of Provision (verse 9-16)

Read verse 9-16:

9 Then Moses told Aaron, "Say to the entire Israelite community,`Come before the LORD, for he has heard your grumbling.'" 10 While Aaron was speaking to the whole Israelite community, they looked towards the desert, and there was the glory of the LORD appearing in the cloud. 11 The LORD said to Moses, 12 "I have heard the grumbling of the Israelites. Tell them,`At twilight you will eat meat, and in the morning you will be filled with bread. Then you will know that I am the LORD your God.'" 13 That evening quail came and covered the camp, and in the morning there was a layer of dew around the camp. 14 When the dew was gone, thin flakes like frost on the ground appeared on the desert floor. 15 When the Israelites saw it, they said to each other, "What is it?" For they did not know what it was. Moses said to them, "It is the bread the LORD has given you to eat. 16 This is what the LORD has commanded:`Each one is to gather as much as he needs. Take an omer for each person you have in your tent.'"

Notice God provides for them twice over:

First God provides a one off banquet of meat from the sky. Apparently there is an annual migration of quail in the area, they fly for days and can often fall from the sky in exhaustion if the wind is against them.  This is a miracle, being able to provide a mechanistic explanation doesn't stop us from being able to say that God provided it miraculously… But for those who doubt that this is possible it has been known to happen.  The miracle here is not just that birds drop from the sky, but that they drop from the sky when God says and where God says and in the quantities that God says – enough meat to feed 600 000 men and their families!  In other words we have here another reminder that God is indeed the ruler of his creation and he is able to act in and through our ordinary everyday apparently mechanistic natural world to provide for his people's needs supernaturally.  For the people of Israel it was a slap in the face- one of those gentle 'wake up' type of slaps, not the full on rejection type – it's as if God is saying to them:  'Pharaoh gave you meat, big deal, I can make meat fall from the sky, I created meat, meat's no trouble.  Don't you remember that Pharaoh's meat came with strings attached, and whips and chains, even genocide.  He gave you meat so you could build his cities; I give you meat out of love.  Stop thinking with your stomachs and start to see things clearly'.

So God gives a one off banquet, but God also give them a daily meal of bread from the sky. The reality of God's constant provision forIsraelwas spelled out  here in a way that they couldn't possibly miss.  The truth is all people always depend on God for provision, but we're not always clearly aware of our dependence.  HereIsrael, like Elijah in the wilderness after them, are reduced to total dependence on God, a complete, naked, transparent dependence.  They are in the barren wilderness.  They can't sow crops, they can't fish, they can't hunt.  They can't provide for themselves.  But God gives what they need.  And he gives it in such a way that there is no way they can take credit for it, all they do is to collect up the pieces that God has scattered for them (note that they do have to collect it for themselves, they don't just lie back on couches as we imagine the Romans doing, being spoon fed by the Lord, they did have to go out and pick it up, so God is teaching them to work for their daily bread, but the supernatural origin of the food is obvious). Deuteronomy 8 interprets this for the people ofIsrael, if you've got time go and read it this week.  There Moses teaches them that God gave them bread from heaven to teach them that man does not live on bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.  He says God was humbling them so that they would always remember that it was God who brought them out of Egypt, God who provides for them, God who should be thanked for all that they have – even long after when they are safely settled in the promised land they should remember that the Lord fed them all those years, it is the Lord who deserves thanks and praise for all that they have.  And as a result they should be careful to fully obey God always – because man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord; that is by obedience to God's commands.

How can we understand this?  I think Victor Hugo understood it, it's how he starts Les Miserables?  An old Bishop takes in a vagrant ex-criminal.  The old bishop has only two things of value, but the man repays him by stealing one of them. He is duly caught and brought back to face the bishop.  And the Bishop stuns both him and the police by acting as if the silver he stole was a gift – in fact he presents him with his remaining silver candle sticks and says 'you forgot these'.  Ingratitude is followed by astonishing kindness and provision for his needs. It's not an exact parallel is it, but that is how God treatsIsraelat this stage, he meets their ingratitude with further kindness, not just to release them from the oppressor, but to provide for their needs, daily and repeatedly.

Don't have to think too hard to see a connection to us through the Lords prayer do we – Jesus taught us to pray 'give us today our daily bread'.  So we are reminded that all we have comes from God's hand.  LikeIsraelwe should not to imagine that we earn it by the work of our hands, nor that we're safe because we've stocked up an abundance for the future (remember the rich man with the many barns in Jesus parable Luke 12.16-21), but we always need to look to God in trust and hope for his provision.

But of course there is a greater connection to Jesus isn't there – Jesus said to the people 'it is not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven, but … I am the bread of life.  He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in my will never be thirsty.' And a little later 'your forefathers ate the manna in the desert, yet they died.  But here is the living bread that comes down from heaven.  If anyone eats of this bread, he will live for ever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.  That's John 6 from verse 30.  Generations of rejection of God met with kindness and mercy and love.  This is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.  God's love and provision forIsraelis remarkable.  God's love for us is even greater – he provides our daily needs, wonderful, and he provides our eternal need, he provides a sacrifice for sin.  IfIsraelshould look back to the manna in the wilderness to remember to obey God, how much more should the memory of Christ crucified lead us to love and obey God.

So finally we come to the last section:

4)  God's Testing Meets with Mixed Results (verses 17-36)

We won't read all of this section, but let me remind you of the commands by which God tested them:

Look back up at verse 4:

4 Then the LORD said to Moses, "I will rain down bread from heaven for you. The people are to go out each day and gather enough for that day. In this way I will test them and see whether they will follow my instructions. 5 On the sixth day they are to prepare what they bring in, and that is to be twice as much as they gather on the other days."

And down to verse 17:

17 The Israelites did as they were told; some gathered much, some little. 18 And when they measured it by the omer, he who gathered much did not have too much, and he who gathered little did not have too little. Each one gathered as much as he needed. 19 Then Moses said to them, "No-one is to keep any of it until morning." 20 However, some of them paid no attention to Moses; they kept part of it until morning, but it was full of maggots and began to smell. So Moses was angry with them. 21 Each morning everyone gathered as much as he needed, and when the sun grew hot, it melted away.

 22 On the sixth day, they gathered twice as much--two omers for each person--and the leaders of the community came and reported this to Moses. 23 He said to them, "This is what the LORD commanded:`Tomorrow is to be a day of rest, a holy Sabbath to the LORD. So bake what you want to bake and boil what you want to boil. Save whatever is left and keep it until morning.'" 24 So they saved it until morning, as Moses commanded, and it did not stink or get maggots in it. 25 "Eat it today," Moses said, "because today is a Sabbath to the LORD. You will not find any of it on the ground today. 26 Six days you are to gather it, but on the seventh day, the Sabbath, there will not be any." 27 Nevertheless, some of the people went out on the seventh day to gather it, but they found none.

So God gives them bread to eat, and two simple commands – collect a certain amount for each day and do not keep it over night; and for the Sabbath day collect more in advance and don't go out to collect on that day.  Simple right? Worth remembering at this point that being led through the wilderness was the alternative to going the direct route and meeting the Philistines in war (Exodus 13.17) 'When Pharaoh let the people go, God did not lead them on the road through the Philistine country, though that was shorter.  For God said 'if they face war, they might change their minds and return to Egypt'.  Consider the nature of the challenge they face here in the wilderness.  God gives them bread supernaturally, the questions asked of them are: 'will they trust him to collect it and treat it just as God has instructed them'? or 'will they collect too much?' or keep it too long? or try to find it when God has said that he won't provide it?  These are real challenges to their faith, but they are hardly life threatening.  Consider the corresponding challenges if they are to go out to war against superior opponents who are armed for war and better equipped and more experienced. Then the questions are 'can you take your life into your hands and step out into the battle field and trust that God will protect you from the death or maiming?'  Much bigger order of challenge that isn't it?   This is testing in the wilderness, and it is challenging, none of us would want to live like they did for two weeks let alone forty years.  But it's not challenging like the alternatives, God has taken through something hard in order to protect them from something horrific. So how do they do in the testing?  Well some obeyed, but some didn't… And like the garden ofEden all over again isn't it?  They hear God's simple command, and some of them listen.  But some of them do the precise opposite of what they are told.  But notice: God punished gently – those who keep it overnight are not exterminated, just find that the bread is inedible.  Those who go out to harvest on the Sabbath are not burned up, they just come home empty handed. God is being patient with them here. But his patience won't last forever, we get a hint of it at the end in verse 35 'The Israelites ate manna for forty years, until they came to a land that was settled; they ate manna until they reached the border ofCanaan.'  

Subtle isn't it?  But at this point there is no reason to imagine that the people will be wandering in the wilderness for 40 years, it's just a few days walk if you're in a hurry.  But we'll find out as we go on that they spend 40 years there because they can not be faithful to God, ultimately the same lack of trust in God that we see at work here – leading the people to disobey God, will continue to work out in disobedience to God.  When they come to cross over into the land they will again fail to listen to God's word and obey, and so God in punishment will condemn them to wander in the wilderness until they are all dead, and only their children will enter in.

Not sure what this should be – like gold refined by fire?  That's the image that is used in 1 Peter on this very topic.  Impure metals melted down to reveal impurities – but impurities so revealed can also be removed.  So practice for purifying metal was same then as is today – melt it down, impurities rise to the top, scrape them off, then allow to cool and repeat the process until no impurities rise to the surface. When we consider that this is illustration of the way in which we are corrected and improved by trials we realise how necessarily painful that process will be, but also how it makes us stronger – 'whatever doesn't kill me makes me stronger' – no, but anything that leads us to grow in faith makes us stronger, if it doesn't kill us and it removes our impurities, then it makes us stronger. To take this further the untried faith has no strength in it, we think we will trust and obey when the challenge comes, but really we have no idea, and the least breeze of a challenge can knock us over.  But if we've stood firm under challenge then we know there is strength in us.  So God leads us through small challenges to bigger ones. Application                                                               i.      We need to see ourselves in a similar position to the Israelites.  Time and again their wandering in the wilderness is a paradigm, a pattern for us to understand our current experience.  LikeIsraelin the desert we have been saved from slavery that leads to death.  But like them we are still looking forward to entering into the fullness of our inheritance.  We wander through this world, looking forward to the next, where we will see God face to face and share in Christ's reward, enter into his happiness, leave all fear and doubt and death and pain and mourning behind.  That great hope is still ahead of us.  In the meantime we face testing and trials that grow our faith, or expose our lack of faith.  We are constantly facing the same decision thatIsraelfaced – trust and obey or give in to fear and desire and do what everyone else is doing?  

So what is the big picture for us?

We're like the people ofIsrael– saved from slavery to sin and death, and on our way to the promised land.  But we're not there yet, and in the now we're in the land of testing and trial.  It is a wilderness of danger and temptation.  And through testing and trial our faith is proven genuine, and our relationship with God is deepened as we learn that we can trust him, and we learn to obey him.  Or our faith is unmasked as counterfeit, we find that we don't trust God and will not obey him, and slowly but surely we fall out of relationship with God.

RememberIsrael- their hearts were unmasked in the wilderness, they yearned for the old master, Pharaoh, the slave driver who wanted them dead.  They forgot the pain and danger ofEgyptand remembered only it's pleasures.  So they could only ever manage half hearted service – they were constantly looking back over their shoulders and yearning for the life of slavery.  And the sad reality is that we do too – a  great part of us loves the fruits of wickedness, that's what makes temptation so tempting.

Peter describes the behaviour of his time as 'a great flood of dissipation', and his readers were tempted and even goaded to plunge in.  And the same is true for us in our time, we're surrounded by all kinds of wickedness and sin, and it looks like fun, and everyone around us tells us that it is.  All around us people live for themselves, live for the moment, indulge their every passion and call themselves free.  And we feel the pull of that. We want a part of it too. But we need to take a second look and see beyond the short term pleasures to see that that freedom is slavery, slavery to sin, and therefore slavery to death.  It looks like good fun because we lack the eyes to see the corruption that lies underneath it and the pain that it causes, and ultimately because we don't care enough about God and his glory and honour.  But look again, remember that it's death, not life, that it's slavery, not freedom. Remember that it was for those very things that Jesus died for us, and learn to walk the walk of the pilgrim.  Turn aside from the things that will drag you back – the sin that so easily entangles and everything that hinders, and pursue God and him alone, because only he satisfies in the end.

1 Cor 10 shows that the experience ofIsraelin the wilderness is a terrible warning to us – the Israelites didn't believe and didn't obey and so they didn't see the promised land, they died in the wilderness.  So let's learn the lessons of the wilderness so that we will live, we will hold on to faith in God and we will enter into our promised eternal inheritance.

Let's pray