God’s Provision

God provided for the Israelites when they were in the wilderness. During the early days of the exodus, Moses stretched out his hand over the Red Sea and God opened up the sea so the Israelites could pass through on dry ground (Exodus 14:13-31). God provided the means for the Israelites to escape Pharaoh and the Egyptian army.

Following the passage through the Red Sea, Moses led them into the wilderness. After three days in the wilderness (Exodus 15:22), they found no water to drink and when they arrived in Marah, the water there was to bitter to drink. So, the grumbling began! “What shall we drink?” they said. We can’t drink that!

Moses cried out to the LORD and the LORD showed him a tree. In Exodus 15:25 God threw the tree in the water and the water became sweet. Moses then led them to Elim, where there were 12 springs of water and 70 date palm trees. So, they camped there. God again provided for their needs (Exodus 15:27).

The next day, Moses then led the Israelites out into the wilderness of Sin (Ex. 16:1). What happened here? The Israelites began to grumble to Moses again. They said that they would rather have died in the land of Egypt, where they sat by pots of meat and ate plenty of bread. But, oh no! Moses, you brought us out here in the wilderness where you are going to kill us all due to hunger.

Here’s where the LORD stepped in again to provide for the Israelites. He told Moses in Exodus 16:4, “. . . Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you . . .” So, Moses told the people that God would provide for them, but they would have to go out and gather a day’s portion. And God did provide manna for them. The manna was white, the color of the full ray of light and like wafers that tasted like honey.

The LORD spoke to Moses and said that He heard all the grumbling, so He told Moses to tell the Israelites that they would be filled with bread. Most importantly, they would know that He is God. The next morning, after the dew had gone up, on the face of the wilderness there lay a small round thing, and Moses said to them, This is the bread which the Lord has given to you to eat. Then in Exodus 16:12 God said you will eat meat in the evening and bread in the morning. The meat that appeared to them in the evening was quail. God again provided!

The manna was a daily provision for their daily need. They couldn’t hoard it either, because it would breed worms right away and stink. Everyday, the manna had to be gathered. It would not keep; they could not lay up a stock of it for the future. Here is where diligence on our part is so much needed. God provided just enough to keep the Israelites satisfied. The manna did not fall into their mouths, but around their tents.

The manna represented the Bread from heaven. That Bread was Christ who came down into the world, a Man among men, yet the perfect expression of God in manhuood. He is “God with us”–Immanuel.

The point I make here is this: God will provide for our needs on a daily basis. We cannot live upon yesterday’s enjoyment of Christ. We must enjoy Him today. Constant dependence upon God, constant drawing from Him, is what He ordains as the way of blessing for us.

You can never have too much of Christ. It is not the amount of time you give to God, but the amount of heart you give Him that counts. He knows well our need as well as our hearts. We are speaking of the acquirement of food, and that Christ is that food. All that we learn must, and will, if it be really learned, give us more knowledge of this living Person. It is food we are to gather–not mental things–but that which will sustain and bless us and glorify God.

Revelation 1:17 says, “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churchesl To him who overcomes, to him I will give some of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone, and a new name written on the stone which no one knows but he who receives it.” We shall ot only “see” the hidden manna, but “eat” of it again, as the LORD expresses it to Pergamos. It is he who has fed upon Christ that shall enjoy Him in the future more than he has enjoyed Him in the past. And so we shall find that while we cannot feed upon our yesterday’s experience and make that satisfy the need of today, it will be for rich blessing when reviewed with our blessed Lord above.

Manna is to us the significant type of the Lord Jesus Christ, and fully interpreted for us in the 6th chapter and the 27th verse of John’s Gospel. Our Lord says: “Do not work for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man shall give to you, for on Him the father, even God, has set His seal.”

God, grant us that manna today!