How does God provide when there's nothing left? In Exodus 16-17, a hungry, thirsty Israel grumbles in the desert — and God rains bread from heaven and brings water from a rock. Dr. Toby Holt shows how God provides and tests His people in the wilderness. With no food, the people accuse Moses of leading them out to die, and God sends manna each morning — enough for each day, to teach them to trust Him daily. Later, with no water, God has Moses strike a rock, and water gushes out. Both the manna and the rock point to Christ — the true Bread of Life and the Rock from which living water flows.

Questions this study answers:

1. Why were the people grumbling? Because they had no food or water and feared they would die. Their complaint was really against God, not just Moses.

2. What was the manna? Bread God rained from heaven each day — a daily test of whether Israel would trust Him rather than hoard. It pointed to Christ, the Bread of Life.

3. How do the manna and rock point to Jesus? Jesus called Himself the Bread of Life, and Paul says the rock was Christ. Both picture the One who satisfies our deepest needs. "Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you… that I may test them, whether they will walk in My law or not." — Exodus 16:4 (NKJV)

Dr. Toby Holt is President of New Geneva Theological Seminary, and his sermons have been downloaded more than 1.9 million times on SermonAudio. Find more verse-by-verse Bible teaching at newgeneva.org; support this ministry at newgeneva.org/give.

Ordinarily, bread doesn't come from heaven, and ordinarily, water doesn't come from rocks.

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But in Exodus 16, both did.

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In this chapter, God provided for His people using the most unexpected of means.

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Click to hear part 6 of our 12-part series from the book of Exodus.

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There's an old saying, it's better to go through the desert than to the desert.

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It's better to go through the desert than to the desert.

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Now why? Have you ever been to the desert? Have you ever been to a legitimate bonafide wilderness

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and stared out into that hot, dry, arid abyss and thought about what it would be like to spend the

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rest of your days there? It's one thing to go through the desert on the way to someplace else,

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to make a brief pit stop. It's another thing to find yourself immersed in that reality as an

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ongoing thing, an ongoing situation. It's better to go through the desert than to the desert.

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With that said, many of the heroes of our faith spent a really long time in the desert or the wilderness, as it's often referred to.

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Who comes to mind? You think about that.

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Who are some guys who spent time in the wilderness? Give me at least one.

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Jesus. Yeah, Jesus in the wilderness. What was the other one?

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John the Baptist.

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Moses was in the wilderness for how long?

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Well, he was in the wilderness in Midian for 40 years.

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You have him in the wilderness for 40 years.

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Now, one name I didn't hear was Elijah.

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Elijah spent three years in the wilderness by a brook where he was fed by what?

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By ravens, by birds.

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Elijah spent three years in the wilderness being fed by birds.

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Moses spent 40 years in the wilderness in Midian.

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The Apostle Paul, he spent up to three years in Arabia following his conversion.

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John the Baptist spent so much time in the wilderness

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that the wilderness is almost synonymous with John the Baptist.

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So many of God's peoples, be they prophets, be they apostles, or what have you,

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spent an elongated season in a situation that they would not have called down upon themselves.

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A situation that was isolating, a situation that was difficult,

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and yet a situation that God had appointed.

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Why?

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Because God tests and tries and refines our faith far more in the wilderness, so to speak,

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far more in the difficulties of our lives,

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far more in the valley of the shadow of death than just about any other place.

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God routinely uses situations and places that you don't like that I don't like in order to test us

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and to try us. Sometimes it's a literal, legitimate wilderness. Sometimes it's just a dry season in

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our lives where it feels like the desert, where it feels like the wilderness. With that said,

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God had a purpose when he took his people out of Egypt, crossed the Red Sea, and parked them for a

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period of time here in this dry, arid region. They weren't in Egypt, and they were in the promised

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land. They were in between. Most of us, we find ourselves there a lot. We're not in the worst

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place, and we're certainly not in the best place. We're somewhere in between. Well, that's where

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they were. They were in the wilderness. They were in the desert. Now, the immediate problem that we

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see in today's text is that they were there, which was unpleasant enough, but they were there without,

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to their eye, the necessities they needed to survive there. Without the food and water that

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they understandably were wondering about what to do. Now, some of the Israelites, when they left

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Egypt the first time, when they're walking out of town, some of them might have thought, you know,

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hey, if it doesn't work out, if we go out in the wilderness a bit and it doesn't work out, you know

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what? We can come back. Pharaoh will take us back. He still needs people to labor. We can come back.

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We can do the things that we're doing. For some of the people, when they first left Egypt, Egypt

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remained a safety net to them in their mind's eye because they figured they could go back what's the

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worst that happens God takes us out and then things don't pan out well you know we can always

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go back you know where we can sit by the pots filled with meat we can eat the cantaloupe you

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know sure we'll get whipped from time to time we'll be oppressed as we were before but we won't

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die of starvation we can still go back well God if he loves you sometimes he will slam the door

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shut so you know you can't go back and you know he did that last week he did that when the israelites

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sat there on the beach and looked out and watched the egyptians get washed away by the wrath of god

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at that moment i think the israelites knew there was no going back it's kind of like when cortez

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you know burned his own ship so he couldn't return except in this case god burned the ships god

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burned the chariots there was no going back so you have hungry people they can't go back they know

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that door is closed. They can't go back to where they were. They look around, you know, there's no

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McDonald's in sight, there's no bottled water hanging about, and got hundreds of thousands of

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people wondering this. Not like a dozen. You had hundreds of thousands of people wondering, all right,

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what to do? What to do? And for some of them, they thought, you know what, this seems like the recipe

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for a lot of shallow graves. And that's what they told Moses. They say, Moses, we get it now. We get

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it. You brought us out here to die. That's what they tell them in today's text. You brought us

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out here to die. It wouldn't be the first time they said it. They would say this multiple times

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throughout the period of the Exodus. They would look Moses in the eyeball and tell him that he

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had genocide on his mind when he took them out of Egypt. Of course, Moses, you have to feel for

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Moses. Of course, he didn't do it for that outcome. And so it had to hurt to have his motivations

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impugned in this way. Whatever the case, this is the scenario that we open today's text in.

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They're thinking Moses has brought them here to die. However, that's not the case at all.

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In fact, it wasn't even Moses who brought them there. Moses will keep trying to redirect them

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to God and say, you keep talking to me and Aaron like we did all this. Look up. You see the pillar

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of fire, the pillar of cloud? Talk to him. This is the one who has led us thus far, and he didn't

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bringing you out to die. He brought you here to learn a lesson. He brings you into the wilderness

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in your own life to teach you to trust, to trust in him. The reason God allowed the Israelites to

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be isolated in chapter 16 was to teach them something they'd really need to know in the

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years that would follow, that they were called to rest and rely upon God alone, God alone for

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their provision and for their protection. It's something that didn't come naturally to them,

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didn't come naturally to us and yet sometimes god creates these moments in order that our faith

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might be tested refined and hopefully validated all right let's look now i'm going to read verses

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one through three of chapter 16 and we'll plow our way forward chapter 16 verses one through three

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then they journeyed from elam and all the congregation of the children of israel came

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to the wilderness of sin which is between elam and sinai on the 15th day of the second month

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after they departed from the land of Egypt.

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Then the whole congregation of the children of Israel complained.

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Dear heavens, they just got across the Red Sea like a chapter or so earlier.

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Then they complained against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness.

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Notice their complaints are against these guys.

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And the children of Israel said to them,

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Oh, that we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt

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when we sat by the pots of meat, when we ate bread to the full.

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For you, you have brought us into the wilderness to kill the whole assembly.

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with hunger you know there's the quote you may have heard of this i think it originated somewhere

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in the 1900s but the quote said this mankind is only ever nine meals away from anarchy

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think about that think about what would happen if the entire population was deprived of food

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and sustenance for a period of i don't know three days nine meals give or take with no foreseeable

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food on the horizon. Within a very short window of time, maybe 72 hours or so, you'd see some

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interesting things going on in the world around you. Well, it's that sort of desperation that

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we're seeing here in verses 1 through 3. In verses 1 through 3, the people's tummies are starting to

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rumble with rage. Their tummies are starting to rumble. They're getting restless. Now, I want you

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to make a distinction. There's a difference between being hungry and starving, right? Sometimes we use

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them synonymously. They're not synonyms. Is anyone hungry right now? I'm kind of hungry. Most of you

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know I don't eat the donuts before the service. I wait so I don't get any on my tie. I'm hungry

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right now, but I'm not starving. I'm hungry, but I'm not starving. Starving is when my body starts

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to eat itself. It doesn't have the ability to go on when your faculties start to diminish. There's

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the difference between being hungry and starving. At this point, they're just hungry. And we know

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they weren't starving. Why? Because as you picture them, you think that there's no options food-wise.

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There was plenty of options. Plenty of options. What were they? What? They bought animals. They

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had livestock. Think about it. You remember back when Pharaoh sent them out? Moses was adamant.

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We're going with our livestock. And they took them. They took all the livestock. The livestock

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went with them. And that wasn't just the case back in chapter 12, but even the very next chapter

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beyond the one we're reading today, chapter 17, says that they still had the livestock at this

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point after crossing the Red Sea. You see, they weren't starving yet. They weren't starving yet,

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but they're hungry and they could see starving on the radar. They could anticipate it. And so it's

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with that possibility in mind, not the reality, they weren't starving to death. They didn't look

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to their left or the right and see corpses, right? So this wasn't a reality at the time. It was the

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threat of a reality. And the threat of the reality, that was enough to freak them out. And so they go

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to Moses, and they look Moses in the eyeball and say, you brought us out here to kill us. You brought

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us out here to die. You know, in our day and age, you know what's interesting? If you go to Israel,

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Moses, like one of the most revered people,

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if not the most revered in all of Israelite history.

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Moses, Moses, Moses wrote the Torah.

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They view the Torah as of greater distinction

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than all the rest of the Old Testament books.

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Why? Moses wrote this.

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Even in Christ's time, Moses had a significant reverence.

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But the irony is this.

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When Moses himself was alive, people hated him.

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Read Deuteronomy sometime.

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You're not reading the memoirs of a popular guy.

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You're reading the words of a guy

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who's just getting beaten up all the time

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by the people who lives there.

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So it's a great irony.

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We think Moses is great.

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Those in Israel think Moses is great.

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They didn't think he was great back then.

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So their accusation in verse 3 had to sting this guy.

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I mean, it's not like God, through Moses,

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hadn't done some awesome things in recent days.

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All manner of awesome stuff had happened.

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Remember, the people had prayed that God would deliver them,

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and what did God do?

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He delivered them using Moses.

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And then Moses was the tool and the means

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in the intercessor and the mediator by which he spoke to pharaoh he interceded on behalf of the

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people the red sea was parted upon moses raising his hands there moses had been a big part of god's

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plan and even now even now god kept speaking to moses and then moses would relate the words to

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the people but none of what moses had done was good enough for the people and so when they're

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hungry not starving just hungry they just threw him under the bus threw him under the bus they

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turned against him quickly they said moses you're not the architect of our deliverance you're the

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architect of our doom all right let's see what happens next verses four through eight then the

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lord said to moses behold and whenever you see the word behold it's like stop the presses are you

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ready for this. Behold, I will rain bread. I will rain bread from heaven for you. And the people

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shall go out and gather a certain quote every day that I may test them. That I may test them. Even

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when he answers their prayer, even when he delivers for them, there's still a test. I will deliver a

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certain amount each day that I may test them, whether they will walk in my law or not. And it

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shall be on the sixth day that they shall prepare what they bring in, and it will be twice as much

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they gathered daily. Then Moses and Aaron said to all the children of Israel, at evening you shall

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know that the Lord has brought you out of the land of Egypt. And in the morning you shall see

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the glory of the Lord, for he hears your complaints against the Lord. But what are we that you complain

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against us? Also Moses said, this shall be seen when the Lord gives you meat to eat in the evening

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and the morning bread to the full, for the Lord hears your complaints which you make against him.

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And what are we? Your complaints are not against us, but against the Lord. Do you see the redirect?

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Do you see the redirect? What Moses is doing in these verses? They came to him, says, you led us

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here to die. Moses says, look, I didn't lead you anywhere. This is not about me. God has used me,

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and I'm pleased to be used of him for his purposes. But, but it was not I who led you anywhere.

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the Lord has done this the Lord has done that and when you complain you know who you're complaining

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against the Lord not me so think it through before you keep this up all right and verse four we see

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that God has a plan here that's what God tells Moses in these verses that we just read he says

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I got a plan but it's not going to be the plan they would expect I got a plan they're not going

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to see it coming. Here's the plan. Here's the plan, Moses. You ready for this? I'm going to rain bread

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from heaven. You know, have you ever prescribed solutions to God on things that he might do?

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Let's say that you got a problem. You got something that's going on in your life, and you go, well,

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all right, God, here's the problem. And you explain what the problem is, as if he doesn't

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already know it. So explain the problem to God, and then you're very helpful, right? Because you

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go to God and you say, God, the good news is I've also got some solutions. Here's the problem,

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but here's what you can do. And then we prescribe. We say, God, if you will do this and then this

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and this, then that will be the outcome. We have a very linear approach to prayer. We go to God

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with our problem, but then we very helpfully tell him what he needs to do. If there's a certain

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problem with our finances or our job or our relationships or our health, we'll say, here's

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my problem, God, and I know you know it. I don't know if you know what you should do next, so I'm

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going to tell you. And because it seems so wise to us what he should do, we think, of course, it'll

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be wise to him. So we prescribe so often to God the things that he should do, and very rarely,

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very rarely, I don't know the statistics on it, but I bet it's single digits, very rarely does

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he do things the way that we think he ought to do it. More often, he surprises us with what he does.

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That was the case here.

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Hundreds of thousands of hungry people

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that are looking for something to eat.

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And all of them got ideas about how God could fix it.

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But the idea that they might have come up with

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was not the one that he tells Moses, I will perform.

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I'm going to do something you would not expect,

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that you would not see coming.

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It's not written on your bingo card of providence.

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I am going to rain bread from heaven.

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you know, if you're going through something weird and wild and wacky right now, and you want God to

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open a door, well, God can open doors. He can open doors that you can't open. But here's the thing,

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he can also open doors that you don't even recognize are doors. He can open doors that

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you can't open. He can do things that you can't do, but he can also see things that you can't see.

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And he can see options that you haven't even considered.

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Your situation, whatever it is right now, might be kind of odd.

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And you might think there's only like three options that this could go.

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Really?

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Whenever the Israelites tried that with God, he said, look at door number four.

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He says, I got something new or something different.

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And not only is it different, as if God just likes to be different, but it's better.

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It's better.

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When you prescribe something to God, the arrogance of that is the I know best.

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I know what you should do.

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Therefore, I'm sure you'll do it because you always do the right thing.

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Right, God?

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God knows things you don't know.

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And he also can secure ends that are better than you're capable of securing on your own.

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But you might not recognize something as being better at the time he does it.

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However, your recognition isn't factored into his sovereign will.

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And that's a good thing.

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Let's look at our next verses, verses 9 through 14.

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So then Moses spoke to Aaron and said,

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Say to all the congregation of the children of Israel,

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Come near before the Lord, for he has heard your complaints.

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Now it came to pass, as Aaron spoke to the whole congregation of the children of Israel,

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that they looked towards the wilderness, and behold,

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remember, stop the presses, something significant's going on,

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behold, the glory of the Lord appeared in the cloud.

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And so it was that quail came up in the evening and covered the camp,

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and in the morning dew lay all around the camp.

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And when the layer of dew lifted, there on the surface of the wilderness was a small round substance,

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as fine as frost upon the ground.

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You know, way back, 1986,

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I was in sixth grade, 1986.

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Now, at that time, I did something I'd never done before.

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In 1986, I wrote a letter to the president.

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Here's the reason why.

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You remember the Challenger, the space shuttle, the Challenger?

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I think Kristen McCullough, remember, the teacher was on board the Challenger,

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And if you remember, if you were alive at this time,

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I remember in grade school, this was a really big thing.

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Shuttle launches back in the day were like wall-to-wall news.

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They would telecast these things live.

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And this particular launch was especially important

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because it wasn't an astronaut, per se, that was going up.

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It was a schoolteacher.

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So, of course, in schools, we watched this.

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We watched it live.

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Now, in watching it live, we saw something unfold

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that no one expected to unfold.

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The space shuttle exploded.

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remember the O-rings? The spaceship exploded and fell into the ocean. Now, in the week thereafter,

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I wrote a letter to the president. Again, I don't know why I thought that was the right response,

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but that's what I did. And I don't remember exactly what I wrote. I suspect I was probably

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giving the president some advice on what he might want to do about all these different things. I

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don't know what was going down in my mind, but I do know what happened next. See, I got a response.

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a response. I'll put air quotes. I got a response. Now, the response, on the one hand,

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it wasn't what I would have loved, because it was from someone on the president's staff. And they

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wrote me, and in the letter, they said this. They said that they had shared my words with the

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president, and that the president wanted me to know that he appreciated my thoughts, that he

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appreciated my sentiment, the things I said in the letter. Now, to this day, I have no idea whether

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what I wrote ever actually got read to the president. This might have been some sort of

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formulaic thing that they say to make people think that the president, you know, is like Santa Claus,

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you know, everything that you send to him or you receive sort of thing. I really don't know if he

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ever read it or knew about it, but I'd like to think he did. I'd like to think that he heard me,

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and I'd like to think that my words mattered.

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Now, what if I wrote to the president,

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and a week later he showed up at my door to talk with me?

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Well, that would have given me certainty

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that he had heard what I had said,

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if he showed up to talk to me.

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That would have let me know that what I had said

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had been received, and that he was responding to it.

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In the same sense, or similar sense, in verse 10,

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God heard his people.

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He didn't relegate their prayers to the office staff.

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He heard his people, and he proved it by showing up,

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by showing up at their doors.

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Specifically, verse 10 says,

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It came to pass, they looked towards the wilderness,

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and behold, the glory of the Lord appeared in the cloud.

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The cloud had been there.

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Remember, they were being led by the pillar of fire and the cloud by a day?

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Well, here, behold, the glory of the Lord appeared in this cloud.

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See, in my own case, I have no idea whether the president ever heard my words.

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I don't know if it would have even mattered if he did.

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But I know this much from Scripture.

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God heard the Israelites, and he showed up in response.

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The proof that he heard them was twofold.

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Number one, he showed up.

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He showed up at the doorstep.

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And number two, he responded.

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He responded to their prayer, and he provided them food.

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And that's what we see in verses 12 through 14.

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We think of the bread.

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We think of manna from heaven.

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But it wasn't just bread.

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I mean, you know, you can't just eat bread all the time.

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You go to Olive Garden, you don't just eat the bread.

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There's got to be something else.

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Well, God provides both the bread and the meat, the bread and the quail.

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Now, of those two, which one was a miracle?

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Don't say both because that's not going to be both.

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See, quail, when that shows up, that's providential.

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They had a need, and all of a sudden, a bunch of quail shows up.

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Now, the quantity by which it showed up was probably pretty surprising,

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but the quail in and of itself is not a miracle per se.

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People had seen quail before.

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People had encountered a quail.

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If you see a quail going by, you go, aha, a quail.

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Let's eat it.

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That was not a novelty to them.

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What was a novelty to them?

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Bread that comes from heaven in the morning.

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That is a miracle.

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And it was a miracle for several reasons.

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Number one, it had never existed before.

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See, this manna is not something that they had some frame of reference for.

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Like, oh, yeah, manna.

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I remember manna.

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It's like, you ever remember, like, I don't know, Clark bars or something?

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You tell your kids, yeah, this used to be.

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to be a thing. It's not like that. It's not like they could point back and say, yeah, manna. I

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remember manna when we were a kid. None of them remember manna. They've never seen manna before.

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That's one of the reasons it was a miracle. Number two, something was miraculous about manna was

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this. It went where they went. It traveled. If they went to this part of the wilderness, to another

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part of the wilderness, what happened? The manna went with them. No other sort of thing, crop out

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there that we see follows you around. The wheat doesn't go where you are. The corn doesn't go

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where you are in this case the man went where they went the third miracle is that it came not

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seven days a week but six so six out of the seven days a week for weeks and months and years on end

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this stuff showed up six days not seven six days if this is just some natural phenomenon something

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you explain how do you explain that that's not how anything works and the fourth thing that we see

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that makes this miraculous is that it showed up

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in their moment of need, and it ceased when?

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When they got to the promised land.

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It stopped, and there was no more.

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Except, like God told the people,

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he says, you take some of this manna,

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and you put it in a pot, and you put that pot where?

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In the Ark of the Covenant.

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And you will remember how I provided for you

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in your hour of need, how I came through for you

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in a way you never saw coming.

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They didn't put quail in the ark.

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Notice that.

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No quail, no feathers floating around the ark.

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The manna, yes.

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And also because the manna pointed

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to something greater than itself.

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The manna pointed to...

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Oh, dear heavens, we're going to do it louder.

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The manna pointed to...

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Jesus, that's right.

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That's very important.

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That's why it's in the ark.

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All right, let's move on.

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Let's talk about verses 15 through 26.

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Verse 15.

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So when the children of Israel saw this,

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when they saw the manna,

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When they see these little things on the rocks, they said to one another,

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What is it? What is this stuff?

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For they didn't know what it was.

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And Moses said to them, This is the bread which the Lord has given you to eat.

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This is the thing that the Lord has commanded.

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Let every man gather it according to each one's need,

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one omer for each person according to the number of persons.

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Let every man take for those who are in his tent.

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Then the children of Israel did so, and they gathered.

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Some did more, and some did less.

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And when they measured it by omers, he who had gathered much had nothing left over,

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and he who gathered little had no lack.

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This is another thing that makes it miraculous.

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Every man had gathered according to each one's need.

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And Moses said, let no one leave any of it until morning.

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Nonwithstanding, oh, that's a bad word here.

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Nonwithstanding, they did not heed Moses.

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But some of them left part of it until morning.

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And it bred worms and it stank.

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And Moses was angry with them.

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I bet he was.

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Verse 21, so they gathered every morning every man according to his need.

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And when the sun became hot, it melted.

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And so it was on the sixth day that they gathered twice as much bread, two omers for each one.

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And all the rulers of the congregation came and told Moses.

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Then he said to them, This is what the Lord has said.

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Tomorrow is a Sabbath rest, a holy Sabbath for the Lord.

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Bake what you will bake today, and boil what you will boil,

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and then lay up for yourselves all that remains to be kept until morning.

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And so they laid it up until morning, as Moses commanded,

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and it did not stink, nor were there any worms in it.

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Again, this is a miracle.

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One day of the week it works a certain way, another week it works a different way.

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Verse 25.

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Then Moses says, eat that today, for today is a Sabbath to the Lord.

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Today you will not find it in the field.

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Six days you shall gather it, but on the seventh day, the Sabbath, there will be none.

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All right, verses 15 through 26.

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Moses tells the people about this manna.

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Now, if you go to the supermarket and you try to tell people about the wheat bread,

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they're not going to be that interested.

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Why?

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Well, two reasons.

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Number one, wheat bread's terrible.

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Everyone knows white bread's the only thing you put on a sandwich.

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Number two, they don't care.

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that's boring. Why are you talking about the bread that has no relevance to them? With that said,

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when Moses talks about the manna, this is something all eyes were fixed on him because

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they're thinking, what in the world is this stuff? How does this stuff work? What's the ground rules?

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And then Moses unpacks him. He says, you're right. This is not ordinary. And he says, furthermore,

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he says, here's the cool thing. Throughout the years, wherever you might go, there's certain

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things you stockpile he says you're not going to stockpile this because god wants to test your

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hearts to see if you trust him to provide more tomorrow you're not to stockpile it you're not

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to say oh god loves me today i'll fill up the satchels and the bags and the briefcases and the

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buckets and everything else because you know he might not be paying attention tomorrow or he might

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not love me tomorrow so i'll store it up today and moses tells the people you're not to do that

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you're not stockpiling, you're not to hoard this stuff. You gather it on Monday, you eat it on

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Monday, and then you repeat the cycle on Tuesday. And through the week, except on the Sabbath,

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you're going to gather twice as much in advance of the Sabbath, because on the Sabbath,

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you're not to do any work. Now, the ground rules here seem pretty clear. However, the people,

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the people are not going to heed them let's look at verse 27 to 36 verse 27 now it happened that

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some of the people went out on the seventh day to gather but they found none if you're moses and you

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wake up and you got your desert cup of joe or what have you oh you're stretching you look at you go

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what what are they doing didn't i tell them not to do this verse 27 it happened that some of the

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people went out on the seventh day to gather and they found none why did they find none because

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there was none to be found. Verse 28, and the Lord said to Moses, how long do you refuse to keep my

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commandments and my laws? See, for the Lord has given you the Sabbath, therefore he gives you on

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the sixth day bread for two days. Let every man remain in his place, and let no man go out of his

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place on the seventh day. So the people rested on the seventh day. And the house of Israel called

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its name manna, manna, and it was like white coriander seed, and the taste of it was like

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wafers made with honey. Then Moses said, this is the thing which the Lord has commanded, fill and

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Omer with it to be kept for your generations, that they may see the bread with which I fed you in the

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wilderness when I brought you out of the land of Egypt. And Moses said to Aaron, take a pot and put

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Omer of manna in it and lay it up before the Lord to be kept for your generations. And the Lord

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commanded Moses, so Aaron laid it up before the testimony to be kept. And the children of Israel

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ate manna for 40 years until they came to an inhabited land. They ate manna until they came

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to the border of the land of Canaan, the promised land. Now, and Omer is one-tenth of Venefa. All

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All right. Verses 25 through 26, Moses says that there's not going to be any manna on

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the Sabbath. But the good news is that there'd be plenty the day before. God wanted his people

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to rest and not gather it on this seventh day. Now, the people, as we saw in these verses,

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they just didn't trust him enough. They saw the day before. They saw him like a Thursday. They

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saw, you know, oh, manna. And then as the Sabbath is approaching, you think, well, is it really

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going to be there? Can I have confidence? And as we said a little bit ago, they didn't have

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confidence, and so they gathered it up. They went out there on the seventh day, we see in verse 27,

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to gather, and there was nothing to be gathered. How often do you spend your Lord's day gathering,

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working, doing those things that God has told you, hey, you get a break from that stuff.

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It's a break, and it's for your benefit. It's not to make life harder. It's for your benefit.

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How often vocationally do we go out and do things because we think that we have to?

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Things that are not aspects of emergency or need or ministry or service or what have you,

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but just vocational things or other forms of labor that we do because we think I have to do it.

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I've only got so many hours in the week and I've got to do what I've got to do.

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How often do we spend our Lord's Day out searching for manna?

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Is our Sunday calendar filled with things that we think we have to do

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rather than the rest in worship God calls us to do?

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If so, if that's you or a loved one, this passage is talking to you, not just to the Israelites.

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All right, let's look at our final verses.

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We're going to go now to chapter 17 for the balance, just the first seven verses.

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First seven verses, we're going to move from the bread and from the instructions of the bread

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to a time when they are thirsty.

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Chapter 17, verse 1 through 7.

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Then all the congregation of the children of Israel set out on their journey from the wilderness of sin

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according to the command of the Lord, and they camped in Rephidim,

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where there was no water for the people to drink.

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Therefore, the people contended with Moses and said, give us water that we may drink.

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And so Moses said to them, why do you contend with me?

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Do you see this?

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They keep blaming him and he keeps going, dear heavens, why do you keep throwing this

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at my door?

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As if I just whip out the water and the bread on my own volition.

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So therefore, the people contended with Moses and said, give us water that we may drink.

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Moses said to them, why do you contend with me?

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Why do you tempt the Lord?

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And the people thirsted there for water and the people complained against Moses.

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And they said, why is it you have brought us out of the land of Egypt

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to kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst?

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You see, they still have livestock at this point.

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Of course, they won't for long if they don't drink.

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That's what they're saying.

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So verse 4, so Moses cried out to the Lord, saying,

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Lord, what shall I do with these people?

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What shall I do with these people?

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And then he says something interesting, which demonstrates just how much they hated this guy.

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He says, Lord, what should I do?

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they're almost ready to stone me they're ready to take me out in the field and kill me because

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they're convinced i'm their enemy i've done nothing but tell them good and intercede for them

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and try to minister to them and that they're hostile they'd stone me right now if they could

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verse 5 and the lord said to moses go on before the people and take with you some of the elders

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of Israel. Also take in your hand your rock with which you struck the river, and go. Behold, behold,

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I will stand before you there on the rock in Horeb, and you shall strike the rock, and water

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will come out of it that the people may drink. And Moses did so on the side of the elders of Israel.

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So he called the name of the place Massa and Meribah, because of the contention of the children

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of Israel, and because it tempted the Lord, saying, Is the Lord among us or not? Oh my goodness.

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the basic nature of their complaint was, A, Moses, we can't stand that guy, and B, we don't really

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know if the Lord is going to come through for us. Is the Lord with us or not? I mean, I see the fire,

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I see the cloud. I mean, I suppose he's here, but I'm not sure. And by the way, I'm hungrier,

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I'm thirstier, what have you. Is the Lord amongst us or not? What we see in these seven verses of

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chapter 17, they're a lot like what we see in chapter 16. In fact, if you were to go back one

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chapter earlier, the very end of chapter 15, they were thirsty then too, and God answered that. God

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provided water. This happened time and time and time again. What you see in these seven verses

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is a recapitulation of these earlier events. When they got hungry or they got thirsty, they did two

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things. They blamed Moses and they doubted God. When they got hungry or thirsty, they blamed Moses

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and they doubted God. And God did the same thing in verses one through seven that he did with

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the manna. He provided an answer to them, for them, using the last means that they would have

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guessed. They would never have guessed bread from heaven. Remember we said that was on their bingo

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card of providence. They would never have guessed bread from heaven. Well, here's the thing. They

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also would never have guessed water from what? From a rock. I mean, you could look at rocks all

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day. Rocks are rocks are rocks. Nothing passes through an actual rock, certainly not water here.

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However, that's exactly what's going to transpire. God uses something that they would not expect,

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and the rock, of course, points forward to who? Jesus. All right, as we wrap up this morning,

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you know what the number one thing that drives people away from prayer and worship is? You can

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just guess. Just think about it. The number one thing that drives people away from prayer

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and worship. Well, it's not hardship. You'd think that it might be, that something bad comes in my

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life so I lose hope, I lose faith, I walk away from God. That's really not number one. If anything,

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my experience anecdotally is that hardships drive people to God. What drives them away from prayer

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and from worship is self-reliance. If you had everything that you needed today and everything

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you needed tomorrow on into the future? What do you need God for? And that's what your heart would

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tell yourself. If you have everything that you ever need, or you can attain everything you ever need,

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then your need for him dwindles down to nothing, and your relationship with him shrivels up as well.

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If you had no need for God the rest of your days, do you think you'd run after him with the vigor

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that you would if your days are pockmarked with hardship? I know the answer. You know the answer.

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A starving man pursues a source of hope and nourishment

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in a way that a full man never will.

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We pursue God far more when the ground is shaken beneath our feet

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than if we had everything that we need.

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And God knows that.

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And if God loves you, then he'll allow things to come into your life

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that have the result of drawing you closer to him.

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You see, the thing is, even the wealthy man,

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even the rich man, even the prosperous man,

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has no grasp on just how much he needs God.

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He looks at his circumstances and his toys

531

and his full garage and his full bank account

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and he thinks, I've got it all.

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That's what Nebuchadnezzar did.

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He looked around his garden.

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I've got it all by the hand of my power.

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He has no idea.

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King Nebuchadnezzar at that moment,

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the rich man in his garage full of fancy cars,

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has no idea in that moment

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how much he's relying upon God just for his next breath.

541

It's the word of God's power

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that keeps the molecules in his body fused together.

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It's the word of God's power that keeps the floor beneath his feet.

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You have no idea how much you need God.

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You think you need him just for the bank account or the health or this, that, the other thing?

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You need God just to take your next breath.

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Everything else on top of that becomes gravy to a certain extent.

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You need him just to live, just to breathe, just to move, just to have your being.

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You have no idea how much you need him.

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Most people don't.

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Most people don't.

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And so they think, if I can just acquire enough stuff to myself,

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I mean, I'll do my thing and I'll have my clout and I'll have my autonomy.

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And yeah, God will still be there.

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We'll have a God thing going on.

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He'll still be there.

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But in our mind's eye, we see him as a satellite in orbit of us.

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Newsflash.

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That's not the relationship God formed you to have with him.

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That's not the relationship God wants you to have with him.

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Or he's a satellite somewhere in orbit of autonomous you.

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That's not what you're wired for anyway.

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Even if you had it, it wouldn't be satisfying.

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Your creator, your savior, wants to have a close relationship with you.

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And that's amazing, given who you are, given who we all are,

566

given the things that we've done.

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It's amazing that he should want and desire that,

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given the things that he knows about us.

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It's amazing that he wanted this with Israel

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after they rejected him for like the 8,000th time in three chapters.

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It's amazing that he should want it, and yet he does.

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He fed them, he watered them, he took care of them,

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he provided for them, he protected them,

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and he wouldn't stop even when they messed up.

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That's the sort of God I can serve.

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That's the sort of God I need.

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Any God who's anything less than that,

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or any God who relies on something that I do

579

to keep that relationship alive,

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if I could fail God in that way, I already would have.

581

God has fed us, he's watered us, he's sheltered us.

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Even this day, even this morning, even right now,

583

he's keeping you upright and ticking in order

584

to point you now and the days yet to come to the source of ultimate provision, which is his son,

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Jesus Christ. John 6, Jesus says, look, the rock, the bread, the water, all that stuff,

586

it's all about me. The stuff that you think you need is all meant to point you to the source of

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ultimate fulfillment, and I am it. I am him. I am the bread of life. He who comes to me shall never

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hunger, and he who believes in me shall never thirst. You have spent too much of your life

589

in search of divine breadcrumbs, gathering the breadcrumbs of the fallen world. You've spent

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too much of your life in search of divine breadcrumbs. Today, maybe for the first time,

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but today God calls us not to settle for the breadcrumbs, but to turn and trust in the divine

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baker, the one who has created all things. As he has formed and fashions us, as he protects us,

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he's he who nourishes us, he who feeds us, he who waters us, he's calling to us now. Let's pray.