A Miracle Every Morning

The Word of God from Exodus chapter 16, verses 1 through 21. This is the account of the giving of the manna to the nation of Israel in the wilderness.

Exodus chapter 16. And they took their journey from Elim, and all the congregation of the children of Israel came unto the wilderness of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month after their departing out of the land of Egypt. And the whole congregation of the children of Israel murmured against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness.

And the children of Israel said unto them, Would that we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the flesh pot, and when we did eat bread to the full. For ye have brought us forth into this wilderness to kill the whole assembly with hunger. Then the Lord said unto Moses, Behold, I will wring bread from heaven.

And the people shall go out and gather a certain amount every day, that I may test them whether they will walk in my way. It shall come to pass that on the sixth day they shall prepare that which they bring in. And Moses and Aaron said unto all the children of Israel, At evening then ye shall know that the Lord hath brought you out from the land of Egypt.

And in the morning then ye shall see the glory of the Lord. And Moses said, This shall be, when the Lord shall give you in the evening flesh to eat, and in the morning bread to the full. For the Lord heareth your murmurings which ye murmur against him.

Your murmurings are not against us, but against the Lord. And Moses spoke unto Aaron, Say unto all the congregation of the children of Israel, Come near before the Lord. Full congregation of the children of Israel.

And the Lord spoke unto Moses, saying, I have heard the murmurings of the children of Israel. Speak unto them, saying, At evening ye shall eat flesh, and in the morning ye shall be filled with bread. And it came to pass that at evening the quails came up and covered the camp.

And in the morning the dew lay round about. And when the dew that lay was gone up, behold, upon the face of the wilderness, and when the children of Israel saw it, they said one to another, It is manna. And Moses said unto them, This is the bread which the Lord hath given you to eat.

This is the thing which the Lord hath commanded. Gather of it every man according to his eating who are in his tent. And the children of Israel did so.

And when they did measure it with an omer, he that gathered much had nothing over, and he that gathered little had no lack. They gathered every man according to his eating. And Moses said, Let no man leave of it till the morning.

Notwithstanding they hearkened not unto Moses, but some of them left of it until the morning. And Moses was angry with them. And they gathered it every morning.

Now the explanation for all of this is in John chapter 6. Allow me to read a few verses there, please. John chapter 6. Our Lord has said to 5,000, and now he is preaching a sermon, that he says in verse 27, Labor not for the food which perisheth, but for that food which endureth unto everlasting life, which the Son of Man shall give unto you. For him hath God the Father's shield.

Then said they unto him, What shall we do that we might work the works of God? Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on him whom he hath sent. They said therefore unto him, What sign showest thou then that we may see and believe thee? What does that mean? Our fathers did eat manna in the desert. As it is written, he gave them bread from heaven to eat.

Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Moses gave you not that bread from heaven, but my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he who cometh down from heaven and giveth life unto us. Then said they unto him, Lord, evermore give us this bread.

And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life. He that cometh to me shall never hunger, and he that believeth on me. The last time you ate a piece of bread, did you think about the Lord Jesus Christ? That's why he gave it to you.

All of the blessings that we have out in what men call nature are reminders of God's goodness and God's Son. In fact, when our Lord Jesus met with his disciples, he established what we call the Lord's Supper, and he broke the bread and said, This is my body given for you. Whenever you do this, do it in remembrance of me.

I wonder how many of the billions of people in this world think about the Lord Jesus Christ when they break a piece of bread. You see, we're facing a real problem in today's world. Our lives are actually being threatened.

There are three essentials to life, air and water and food, and the air is getting polluted. We had an ozone warning this past week here in Chicago. The water is being polluted, and bread is getting scarcer and scarcer.

The day may come when men are really going to know what it means to say, Thank you, Father, for this food that we have. Interestingly enough, the same needs that we have physically, we have spiritually. In the gospel of John, the apostle John deals with these.

We need air. In John chapter 3, the Holy Spirit is pictured to us as the wind. The wind bloweth where it listeth.

Oh, how wonderful it is to just inhale, spiritually speaking, that wonderful breath of God, that unpolluted, pure wind. I hope you've trusted Christ as your Savior and the Holy Spirit of God has come into your heart. That's John chapter 3. In John chapter 4, Jesus talks about water.

He talks about having a well of water down within. I hope you've drunk at that well of water. I hope you're not drinking at the broken cisterns of this world that are so polluted and so leading to sin and death.

Then in John chapter 6, the Lord Jesus deals with bread. These are the three needs that you have. You need air, and that's the Holy Spirit, and you need water, and that's the Lord Jesus Christ, the water of life through the Holy Spirit.

Now when the Lord performed this miracle of feeding the 5,000, you'd think that everybody would have been greatly impressed for a long time. Immediately they were. They said, let's make him king.

We can do away with all of our problems. Here's a man who can take care of himself. He has no desire to be anybody's king just to feed their stomach, and so he departed.

And they said, you know, what you did really isn't so remarkable because what you did, you did on earth. You took some bread, and you multiplied it here on earth. Moses did something far greater.

Moses for 38 years almost brought down bread from heaven. How about that? You didn't bring bread down from heaven. You just took what somebody gave you, and you multiplied it.

Now get your eyes off of that kind of bread. He seems to be quoting here the prophet Isaiah who said, why are you spending your money for that which is not bread? Why are you wasting your energy for that which doesn't satisfy? And yet most people are. Most people in the world today are just doing all they can to get the bread that is perishing.

He says, labor not for the bread that's perishing. They said, well, what is that bread? He said, I am that bread. Unless you eat me, you have no life.

And at that point, they, this is, there's something wrong here. He said we have to eat his flesh and drink his blood. There's something wrong here.

He said, no, no, I'm not talking in literal language. I'm saying unless you take me into your being the way you take bread into your being, you will not be saved. In other words, Jesus uses the manna to picture himself.

Now what I'd like to do is this. I'd like us to take Exodus chapter 16 and put it up against John chapter 6 and answer one question. How is the salvation that we have in Christ greater than the manna that Moses gave the Jews back in the Old Testament? Here they were all wrapped up in this miracle.

Moses gave us bread from heaven. Jesus says, my father in heaven is giving you the true bread from heaven and you're missing it. Let's contrast the manna in the Old Testament and the Savior in the New Testament.

And let's find out how our salvation is so wonderful. I want you to go away today from this service at Moody's Church saying it's a wonderful Savior. It's a marvelous salvation that we have.

Every piece of bread, you have the bread of life, Jesus Christ. There are five contrasts that I want to drop into your heart today to encourage you to appreciate your salvation. Contrast number one, when God gave the manna, he gave a gift.

When he gives salvation, he gives the giver. You say, what are you talking about? Well, you know what I'm talking about. Here's a fellow and girl who fall in love.

We're happy when this happens. There's certainly nothing wrong with two Christian people falling in love. And he starts giving her gifts.

If you're going to break up with your girlfriend, do it right before Christmas. It's very economical if you do that. And so he sends her a book and then he sends her a record album and he keeps giving her gifts.

But ultimately, that's not what she wants. She wants the giver. She wants that day to come when he says, you know, if I keep buying you all these gifts, I'm going to have to marry you for my money.

He says to her, look, dear, I love you very much and I have given you inexpensive gifts and I have given you some more expensive gifts. But you know what I'd like to do? I'd like to give you myself. Would you marry me? That's what every fellow and girl waits for.

Isn't that right? The same thing is true with our heart and God. Here were the Jewish people very hungry. Nothing wrong with being hungry.

But they murmured about it. They complained about it. Instead of saying, well, God will take care of us.

The same God who took us out of Egypt can feed us. God himself came down to this earth. When they saw this small, white, round, they said, Mom, what is it? Which later on became manna.

What is it? It was a mystery. You read through John chapter 6 and you'll find that the Jews were still saying the same thing. They looked at Jesus and said, what is it? Who is he? Seven times in John chapter 6, Jesus said, I came down from heaven.

I came down from heaven. And they said, well, he grew up in Nazareth. We remember his brethren and his father was a carpenter.

Oh, no, his father was almighty God. His mother was married to a carpenter. But they said, it's a mystery.

He talks like no other man talks. And he does miracles as no other person ever did. And he lives as no other person ever lived.

What is it? It's a mystery. But the manna was small. That speaks of our Lord's humility.

You see, when the Lord Jesus came down from heaven, he did not come down as a great conqueror riding in a golden chariot with us. He didn't come as a king. He came as a servant.

He didn't come as a rich man. He came as a poor man. He didn't come as a noble Roman.

He came as a despised Jew. He did not come to Jerusalem. He came to the little town of Bethlehem.

And he grew up in Nazareth. Any good thing come out of Nazareth? Small, his humility. Round, his eternity.

You see, the Lord Jesus Christ came down from heaven. I didn't when I was born. In fact, I'm sure after a few weeks, my parents were sure I did not come down from heaven.

Jesus is the eternal God. When Micah wrote his prophecy about the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem, for out of you shall come a governor whose going forth have been of old. Lo and behold, here is a baby who lived before his mother.

The eternal God. He dared to say one day to an angry crowd, before Abraham was, I am. And no Jew would ever dare to say anything like that.

His eternity. He's the eternal God. Small, his humility.

Round, his eternity. White, his purity. Which of you convinces me of sin? I wouldn't dare say that.

Fifty people could stand up and say, you said this. You did that. You didn't do that.

And nobody answered. When they arrested him, they had to hire false witnesses to convict him. And even their number one witness came back and said, I had betrayed innocent blood and went out and hanged himself.

His purity. I'm glad Jesus Christ is the eternal God. He can give me eternal life.

I am glad he was humble because he can fit into my heart. I'm glad that he is the pure. That holy thing that shall be born of thee shall be called.

When they picked it up and tasted it, it was sweet. And Jesus Christ is sweet. Now, that may be a word that some of you don't use, but he is sweet.

Oh, taste and see that the Lord is sweet. And as you eat the sweetness of the Lord, it makes you a little bit sweeter. I've been praying this week that God would just make me a little bit sweeter, a little easier to live with, a little easier to get along with.

And he's satisfying. Year after year, day after day, they ate the manna. Over in Numbers chapter 11, that mixed multitude that or unconverted people said, oh, they tried to improve on it.

They baked it. They ground it. They mixed it like a woman with leftovers, you know, doing everything she can do with it.

They said, we want to go back to Egypt. The leeks and the onions and the garlic. Oh, the contrast between the diet of the unsaved person or the carnal Christian.

Ah, but the believer just opens the word of God and feeds you. When God gave the manna, he gave a gift. But when God gave salvation, he gave the giver.

Now, God wants you to receive his gift. He feeds you. He clothes you.

But have you ever received the giver? You say, no, I've never done that. You mean you've been living on his gift all these years and you've never received the giver? You've been accepting his food and his wealth, all the good things of life, and you've never accepted the giver's shame on you. He stands today waiting to come into your life.

He says, Jesus Christ gives life. You see, people have the idea that sinners, and that's what we are, just need a little help. We're weak and we're sickly and we're confused.

But the Bible says we're dead. Dead in trespasses and sins. Now, if a dead man were lying right at the front of this church, my guess is those children wouldn't be sitting there.

But if a dead man were lying right at the front of this church, you would not be able to touch him and move him physically. You see, when a person is physically dead, he does not respond to physical things. Mr. Brackley could sit at the organ and play a beautiful hymn.

He wouldn't hear it. Someone could come along with some food. He wouldn't taste it or smell it.

Someone could come and touch him. He wouldn't feel it. When you're physically dead, you don't respond to physical things.

When you're spiritually dead, you don't respond to spiritual things. The spiritually dead person doesn't hear the voice of God, and he doesn't taste the sweetness of God, and he doesn't sense. And unfaithful people are dead.

My dear friend, if you're here today and you've never trusted Christ, hear me. You are not sick. You are not handicapped.

You're dead, spiritually dead. And no amount of religion will ever give you life. Now, Jesus came not to sustain life, but to end.

And verse 27, Jesus says, labor not for the food which perishes, but for that food which endureth unto everlasting life, which the Son of Man shall give you. Verse 35, I am the bread of life. He that believeth on me, he that cometh to me shall never hunger.

He that believeth on me shall never thirst. You see, the man has just sustained life physically. Jesus gives life spiritually.

You say, pastor, I don't know what you're talking about. That is an evidence that you need what I'm talking about. What am I talking about? I'm talking about that internal life, that abundant life that comes into you when you receive Christ.

That's why Jesus said to these people, you've got to eat my flesh and drink my blood. Now, they took him literally. They thought he was talking about literal flesh and literal blood.

Obviously, he wasn't. Whenever the Lord Jesus talked about three days, I'll raise it up, they thought he was talking about Herod's temple. He was talking about the temple.

He said to Nicodemus, you've got to be born again. He said, how can I get back into my mother's womb? He wasn't talking about physical birth, spiritual birth. He said to the woman at the well, I will give you living water.

You'll never again have to come out here. Oh, she said, give me that water. He thought he meant physical water.

Now, he says, look, I came down from heaven to give you life. I'm the bread of life. I want to give you myself.

You must eat me. And they said, how in the world can we eat him? Now, the Old Testament Jew was strongly admonished and commanded never under any circumstances to eat blood. Our Orthodox Jewish friends today maintain that same standard.

The blood was precious. What did Jesus mean when he said you've got to eat my flesh and drink my blood? He wasn't talking literally, nor was he talking about the Lord's Supper. He hadn't even established the Lord's Supper yet.

He was talking about this. He said, when you eat bread, it becomes a part of you. You can analyze bread and starve to death.

You can look at bread and starve to death. You can weigh it and measure it and starve to death. You can know the recipe and starve to death.

Likewise, you can look at Jesus Christ and analyze him and study him and read about him and starve to death. In fact, you already are dead. He says, just as bread must become a part of the inner man, so I must become a part of you.

He says, the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life. How do you feed on Jesus? By receiving his word. Dear Lord to me, Jesus Christ doesn't just sustain life, he gives life.

I'm just wondering if you have received this life. Now, if you haven't, do so. Just by faith, say, Lord Jesus, you died for me.

I want to receive you within me, in my innermost being. Come in now and save me. And he'll do it.

There's a third contrast. When God gave the manna, he gave it only to Israel. When he gave Jesus Christ, he gave him to the whole world.

Here's a little nation of Israel that had to have something to eat. And so God said, here's the bread, here's the manna. He didn't give the manna to the Greek philosophers, nor did he give the manna to the Roman legislators.

He didn't give the manna to the Egyptian sorcerers. He gave the manna to the Jewish people, his own people. When he gave the Lord Jesus Christ, he gave him to the whole world.

Notice what he says in John 6, 33. The bread of God is he who cometh down from heaven and giveth life unto the world. The world.

That's one of the greatest things you can say. God so loves the world. Go ye into all the world.

He is the saviour for the whole world. I'm glad of that. Someone comes and says, well, I belong to a certain race.

Can he save me? There are no racial distinctions at the cross. The ground is level and every man stands bankrupt, naked, undone. Someone says, ah, but I've committed some awful sins.

And my Bible says God forgives all sins. You see, when Jesus was given, he was given to the whole world because the whole world was dead. And the whole world was needy.

And the whole world needed a saviour. Did you notice how the manna was given? This is beautiful. The manna came at night.

That's when Jesus came. When the world was not only in physical night, but spiritual night. The people that sat in the darkness had seen a great light.

Everyone that doeth evil said, Jesus, hateth the light, neither cometh to the light. And Jesus came like the manna, came to the world at night. The darkness of sin and guilt and a dirty conscience and fear.

What are you going to do about it? There's only one thing to do, trust Christ. The manna came on the dew. The manna did not touch the dirty earth.

It came on the dew. That dew is a picture of the Holy Spirit. How did Jesus come to the world? Through the Holy Spirit.

Mary said, how shall this thing be? And God's angel said, oh, the Holy Spirit shall overshadow thee. That's how Jesus came, on the dew, the Holy Spirit. And it came in the wilderness.

And Jesus came and said, this world's not a wilderness. Oh, yes, it is. If to you this world spiritually is a garden, there's something wrong with you.

Now, physically, God's made a beautiful world. Sin has wrecked it, but God made a beautiful world. But spiritually speaking, this world is not a garden.

This world is an awful wilderness. Someone has figured out that if you had had to bring that manna in by train, now, there were no trains back then, it would have required four trains of 60 cars each every day just to bring the manna. What did God do? He just graciously let the manna come down on the dew and very sufficiently and adequately and graciously, right where they were, He gave them the bread.

He doth our way. He's as near as your heart's door where He's knocking, asking to come in. There's a fourth contrast, and now we must hurry.

The manna was given at no cost to God. But salvation was given at the greatest price ever paid. It cost God nothing to send the manna.

I was reading over in Psalm 78 what the psalmist had to say about the manna, how simple it was. Psalm 78 and verse 23. Though He had commanded the clouds from above and opened the doors of heaven and had rained down manna upon them to eat and had given them of the grain of heaven, man did eat angels' food, He said.

God just spoke to the clouds and said, Spend the manna, time for the bread. And the clouds created the dew and the dew came down and the dew brought the manna. It didn't cost God a thing.

Oh, but when He was going to save your soul, it cost Him. It cost God nothing to feed my body day by day. The sun is out there and the soil.

You see, the manna didn't cost God anything, but salvation did. I think we forget this sometimes. We have the idea that because something is free, it's cheap.

That's not true. Sometimes the things that are free cost the most. I wonder if children realize what a mother goes through that they might have birth.

I wonder if children realize what parents go through that they may have the freedom of a home. Oh, not everything free is cheap. And some things that seem to be cheap are the most expensive.

Salvation cost God His son. Oh, I can't conceive of it. Why would He do it? Why would Jesus Christ stand up one day and say, I'm going to exchange heaven for earth, spirit for body, sovereignty for servitude, glory for shame, abundance of life for death, a crown for a cross? Why would He do it? Because He loves you.

And what have you done about it? When God gave the manna, they had to work to get it. They had to go out every morning with their little bucket, and they had to stoop down and pick it up and gather it. They had to work to get it.

And you and I have to work for our daily bread. Nothing wrong with this. God has made it this way.

Even before Adam sinned, he worked. Labor is not sinful. The thing that sin did to labor was make it by the sweat of our brow.

Labor for Adam before he sinned was a joyful, creative, wonderful thing. After he sinned, it became a toilsome, burdensome thing. They had to labor for the manna.

It was free, but they had to work for it. They had to go out and pick it up and gather it. Jesus tries to point out to these dear Jewish people in John chapter 6, you don't have to labor for this everlasting life.

They said, what shall we do that we might do the works of God? And He said, here's what you do, believe. Believe. Oh, my friends, you don't have to move one step to be saved.

All you have to do is move that heart of yours and believe. The Old Testament manna, they had to labor to get it, but God's salvation is a free gift. All you have to do is believe.

Now, in order to believe, you have to feel your need. You've got to feel that spiritual hunger down inside. You say, oh, I've tried everything.

I've tried what the world has to offer, but it hasn't satisfied me. I have had this loaf of bread called money, and this loaf of bread called fun, and this loaf of bread called achievement, and I've got a few pretty dirty loaves over here that are called sin. I've tried it all, and I'm still not satisfied.

I'm glad you're hungry. Oh, I'm glad you're hungry, because if you are hungry, then I have for you Jesus Christ, the bread of life. You say, how do I get Him? Just believe.

I receive you now. I partake of you. I take you into my very being by faith.

You know, back in the camp of Israel, you had to stoop down to get the manna. Some of you won't stoop. You're a little bit too proud.

Do you mean I need to be saved while I am an officer in a church? You need to be saved if you've never trusted Christ. You don't know who I am. Yes, I do.

You're a sinner like all the rest of us. If they did not pick up the manna, they walked on it. Now, those are the alternatives.

Oh, you say, I wouldn't walk on the Lord Jesus, but you've done it. How many times has the gospel been presented to you? How many times has the invitation come your way, and you have said no? No. You've walked on it.

I think there are those here today who say, Pastor, where is he? I'm hungry. My soul is so impoverished. I need satisfaction.

You need Christ, and he is the bread of life. And when you receive him, you'll never, ever hunger again. Oh, how great is our salvation.

We don't just receive a gift. We receive the giver. Not just for one nation, for the whole world.

Not just to sustain life, but to give us abundant life. Not by any labor of our hands, but by faith in him at tremendous cost. Oh, if you have received him, rejoice in him.

If you've not received him, come and do so today. Grace of Father in heaven, we pray that many here today who are hungry and need Christ will trust him and believe and be saved. This is our prayer in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.