Bread from Heaven

Story:  Bread from Heaven

Passage: Exodus 16

Characters:  Moses, God, Israel

Summary:    The people traveled for another month and a half.  They grumbled against Moses and Aaron about the lack of bread.  The Lord said He would rain bread down from heaven.  Moses and Aaron told the people this.  God showed His glory to the people and told Moses what He was going to do in the presence of the people.  In the evening, He provided quail, and in the morning He provided manna, a bread like substance.  They were to only gather about 2 quarts per person per day.  However some people disobeyed.  They were to only gather 6 days a week and rest the seventh.  A sample of manna was kept in a jar to be a testament to God’s provision.  The Lord provided manna to the people for forty years. 

  

Notes:  There are some interesting things happening in this story.  We begin to once again see Israel’s stupidity, but once again, we have to remember that we are as bad as they are!  The people are complaining again.  They seem to be blaming Moses and Aaron for their lack of food.  They even claimed to prefer having died by God’s hand in Egypt while they still had food.  This is ridiculous in my opinion!  It shows how shortsighted the Israelites were!  They would rather have food but die than be hungry and live.  They were focused more on their comfort than on the purpose of their life and following God.  God tells Moses He is going to rain down bread from heaven for them every day.  He even says His reason to do this is to test if the people will walk in His law or not.  If I was told that God was doing this to test whether I would obey or not and this test was going to involve me eating food, I would be all for that!  Maybe I would slip up and mess up months into it.  But Israel couldn’t follow God’s command for 24 hours!  I’ll get to that in a minute.  Moses and Aaron knew what was really going on though.  They knew the people were actually grumbling against God.  God showed His glory to the entire congregation.  This is impressive and shows that the root of the problem was that the people did not believe that He was God.  After all of the wonders and provision they had already seen, they still did not understand His holiness!  I just don’t get that!  God does specifically say that He was going to provide bread and meat so that they may know that He is the Lord their God.  Sure enough, God covered the camp in quail in the evening and with a flaky fine honey tasting bread that the people called manna in the morning.  God’s instructions were to gather an omer, or about 2 quarts, per person per day, and to leave none of it until morning.  As it turns out, an omer was a perfect amount of manna for one person in one day! What do you know! Some people kept it until the next morning though.  Moses was angry with good reason.  This showed not only a lack of obedience, but also a lack of trust that God would continue to provide for them the next day!  The manna rotted and smelled and bred worms if it was kept until the next morning.  God provided double on the sixth day.  The people were told to keep half of it until the next day and to rest the next day.  This is the first occurrence of the Sabbath.  It is not just a day of rest, it is a day of solemn rest, a holy Sabbath to the Lord.  However, some people tried to gather manna on the seventh day! These people could not listen to instructions!  They obviously found nothing!  The cool think is that the manna did not rot on the Sabbath.  This was just another obvious sign that God was behind all of this!  When people disobeyed by trying to gather manna on the Sabbath, God got angry at Moses.  Then the people obeyed!  God wanted them to keep a sample of the manna.  He knew the people needed visual affirmation of His provision.  This manna was to remind them that He is capable and willing to provide for them and help them survive!  Interestingly, Christ is the bread of life provided for us when we were starving in the wilderness.  God is in the business of provision at every level of life!  That said, we are not to depend on the provision, but rather on the provider! 

Questions:  What did the people think of the manna?  Did some people dislike it?  How quickly did people get tired of it?  Why could the Israelites not just obey! 

Lessons:  God will provide!  And when you get angry about your circumstances, try to remember that God put you in those circumstances.  You are ultimately complaining about Him.  I highly recommend not doing that!  I also think we can learn from this some of the dangers of relying too much on comfort.  The people would have rather been comfortable while they died, than alive and following God.  That sounds so ridiculously rebellious and like a slap in the face of God, but we do that all of the time!  We put our comfort or our image above God constantly!  Following God should be the number one and the number two priorities in our life!  Nothing else should even come close, not even our own comfort or image.