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Follow the LORD’s Instructions
Follow the LORD’s Instructions Exodus 16:1-36 Key Verse 16:4 “Then the LORD said to Moses, “I will rain down bread from heaven for you. The people are to go out each day and gather enough for that day. In this way I will test them and see whether they will follow my instructions.” In the previous passage we thought about the two songs that the Israelites sang after they saw what God did to the most powerful army on the face of the earth. They sang God’s praises because he was highly exalted by his victory over the Egyptians. They sang His praises because God had become their strength, their defense and their salvation. They sang His praises for the mighty acts that He had accomplished and because now they believed that God would surely keep his promise and lead them into the Promised Land. The two songs sang indicated that they had finally learned who the LORD, whom they called their God, really was. Their desperate situation in bondage in Egypt and the fear that they felt when they were trapped between the Egyptian army and the sea had been completely solved by God. They finally realized that there was nothing that the LORD couldn’t do. However, just three days after they sang these songs, they forgot who was leading them. They began to grumble against Moses because they had no water to drink. When they faced a difficult situation they forgot about all the miraculous things that God had done from them to deliver them from their Egyptian captivity. They forgot that the LORD could do anything and their hope of ever getting to the Promised Land was completely gone. They Israelites didn’t turn to God for relief, instead they just grumbled against Moses. Moses, however, did the right thing and cried out to God. God heard Moses’ cry for help and showed him a solution to the problem. The solution to the was really no solution at all from a human point of view, but in order for it to work, Moses needed to listen to God and obey Him. When Moses followed the LORD’s instruction the problem was solved. God then told the Israelites that He was going to test them in order to see if they would listen to Him carefully and obey all that He commanded. In today’s passage, the Israelites once again face a situation which they can see no solution to and again they begin to grumble against Moses. This time they even go as far as to say that they wished God had simply killed them back in Egypt rather than leading them out into the desert to starve to death. Their un-thankfulness and complaining spirit are almost unimaginable. They had seen God perform the most incredible miracles in order to save them, but they completely forgot about all of these the moment they faced any difficulty. God overlooked their stubborn hearts and graciously provided food for them, first in the form of quail and then in the form of bread from heaven that would sustain them for the next 40 years as they traveled through the wilderness. The quail was the gracious gift of God with no strings attached – God just gave it to them. The bread from heaven was also God’s one sided grace to the Israelites, but it came with a test. The test was simple. All they needed to do was to listen to God’s instructions about how they should collected and when they should eat it. God’s instructions were not difficult, and yet the Israelites could not obey them. In spite of their forgetfulness of God’s grace, their lack of thankfulness and their lack of obedience God continued to be with His chosen people and He continued to feed them every day as they traveled through the wilderness. May God bless our study of this passage and open our ears so that we may carefully listen to His instructions and give us the strength to follow those instructions no matter what situation we find ourselves in. First, A food problem arises (1-3) Look at verse 1. “The whole Israelite community set out from Elim and came to the Desert of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month after they had come out of Egypt.” If you look at Numbers 33 you find a more detailed listing of the journey the Israelites made from captivity in Egypt all the way to the Promised Land. In that listing, Israel made a stop on the way from Elim to the Desert of Sin. That stop was near the Red Sea. We don’t know what they did there or how long they stayed, but we do know when they arrived at the Desert of Sin. It was the fifteenth day of the second month after they had left Egypt. In other words, they had been traveling for exactly one month. This is important because it shows us just how forgetful and unthankful people can be. Look at verses 2 and 3. “In the desert the whole community grumbled against Moses and Aaron. 3 The Israelites said to them, “If only we had died by the LORD’s hand in Egypt! There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death.” Once again the Israelites were faced with a problem, but they didn’t bring this problem to God by crying out to Him. Instead they turned once again to Moses and Aaron and began to grumble against them, but this time there grumbling was even worse than their grumbling at Marah. At Marah they simply complained that there was no water to drink, but this time they went much further. Let’s look carefully at their complaint. They began by saying, “If only we had died by the LORD’s hand in Egypt!” In one sense they were acknowledging that it was the hand of the LORD that had afflicted the Egyptians and freed them from their bondage, but at the same time they were saying that it was a mistake for God to have freed them. Look at what they said next. “There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted.” It is likely that any food supplies that they had time to gather up and bring with them as they were driven out of Egypt, were depleted at this point, but that doesn’t mean that they didn’t still have an abundance of food all around them. In fact, if they wanted to they could still be sitting around pots of meat because they still had all of their flocks and herds with them; perhaps they didn’t have the leeks, onions, salt and pepper they had in Egypt to flavor those pots of meat, but pots of meat they most certainly could have had. However, that is not really their problem. Their root problem was that they were forgetful and unthankful. Let’s go back to chapter 3 and see what God told Moses when He sent Moses on this mission to free the Israelites. Ex 3:7 says, “The LORD said, ‘I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering.’” God had been watching His people and He saw their misery. More than that God heard those same people crying out to Him for relief from their suffering. The people were in absolute misery in Egypt, and yet now all they could remember was that they sat around pots of meat and could eat all the food they wanted. They completely forgot about all the suffering they experienced day after day. How could they think this way? It was because they were extremely forgetful and had unthankful hearts. Actually, all people are like this. When we suffer in the least, we forget about everything else and think that our current suffering is worse than any suffering we have endured in the past. Current suffering always seems far worse than past suffering because we have already made it through that suffering and for the current suffering there often doesn’t seem anyway out of it. Yet we should not react like the Israelites. Instead we should take time to reflect on how God delivered us from that past suffering and cry out to Him for relief in our current suffering. If the Israelites had done this I think they would have quickly come to the conclusion that if God was a to deliver them from bondage under the Egyptians, if He was able to defeat the entire Egyptian army and He was able to provide good drinking water where none had existed, He could surely get them out of this situation. However their focus was not on God and what He had done, but on their situation and on the person who was their leader, so they grumbled to Moses. “but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death.” Second, God’s gracious provision and His test (4-36). When the Israelites were at Marah, the Bible says that the people complained to Moses and then Moses cried out LORD and the LORD showed Moses what to do. Here in the Desert of Sin it was a little different. Look at verse 4. “Then the LORD said to Moses, ‘I will rain down bread from heaven for you. The people are to go out each day and gather enough for that day. In this way I will test them and see whether they will follow my instructions.’” This time Moses did not need to cry out to God, God just immediately spoke to Moses when He heard the people’s complaint. In their complaint the Israelites said that it would have been better for them to have died by the LORD’s hand in Egypt than to face their current situation. In other words, they were basically saying that God had made a mistake. The creatures were telling the creator that they knew what was better for them. When I think about this I have to agree with Martin Luther who reportedly said that if he were God he would destroy the world 1000 times a day, but luckily for all of us, Martin Luther nor I are God. God is gracious. God decided to solve the people’s problem in such a way that they would know that He is the LORD and that nothing was impossible for Him. Furthermore, God was going to do this in such a way that it would test the Israelites to see if they would follow His instructions. I want to focus on God’s test – the instructions he gave the Israelites to see if they would listen to him. I think there are only four instructions they need to follow. Let’s look at verses 4 and 5 because two of four of the instructions are given in these verses. “Then the LORD said to Moses, ‘I will rain down bread from heaven for you. The people are to go out each day and gather enough for that day. In this way I will test them and see whether they will follow my instructions. 5 On the sixth day they are to prepare what they bring in, and that is to be twice as much as they gather on the other days.’” First they are to go out each day and gather enough for that day. Second, they are to gather twice as much on the sixth day and prepare it. If you look over at 19 we can see the third instruction. “No one is to keep any of it until morning.” The final instruction can be found in verses 22-26 and basically it was there will be no manna on the seventh day so don’t go out looking for it. The seventh day was to be a special Sabbath, or day of rest for the people. God’s entire test for the Israelites consisted of four very simple instructions. If we think about this for a moment we come to the conclusion that surely they should have passed this test, but they didn’t. They failed from the very first day. Miraculously, I believe by grace alone, when they collected it on the first day everyone gathered exactly the amount each household required. This was the amount that God knew would sustain a person perfectly. According to God’s measure it was exactly what a person needed for nutrition for one day. The problem was not in the collection of the manna, it was in keeping the third instruction which was not to keep any of it until morning. They were to trust in God to provide for their needs on the following day. The problem that we all have is depending on God to fulfill His end of promise. We all tend to trust in only what we can see, hear, smell, touch and taste. If it is not in front of us we tend not to put any faith in it. The Israelites were in a pretty desperate situation. They were out in the middle of the wilderness with no steady source of food to be seen anywhere. If they could just save a little of the manna at least they would have something to keep them going for the next day. They could see this manna, they could taste it and they knew that it was good for nutrition. But they could not see, touch or taste God’s promise. They faced the same problem again on the seventh day. This time situation was a little different. This time they had the extra manna before them because according to Moses’ command they had all gathered twice as much on the day before. This time I think the people fell trap to their scientific thinking. They saw what had happened to the left over manna a few days before, so they figured if they left their manna to the next day it would be rotten, full of worms and inedible, so they did what they thought was the logical thing. They didn’t bother checking the left over manna because they were pretty sure it was already rotten and they went out to find some fresh manna. In the first week of their test the Israelites completely failed. It seems amazing after all they had seen God do for them. Yet is it really that amazing that they would fail the test? In chapter 15 God mentions this test without giving any of the specifics. In chapter 16 God gave the Israelites the instructions for the test. Four simple instructions to follow, but they couldn’t do it. Once we get to chapter 20, we are going to see that these four instructions quickly grow into 10 and then many more as God goes on to detail what should and shouldn’t be done. These are all God’s instructions that we must keep in order to pass his test. People might say that test is over because Jesus abolished the law. That is not true. Matthew 5:17-18 say “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.18 For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.” The Law of God still stands, we are to obey it, but Jesus has fulfilled it for us. Like the Israelites we all fail God’s test. We simply can’t keep all of his instructions perfectly. Jesus came to do this for us so that when we accept His blood for the forgiveness of our sins our failings are covered and what God sees is Jesus perfection covering us, but this does not mean that God’s law no longer exist. It is just as real today as it was in the time of the Israelites in the Desert of Sin. Only now, it is not just four instructions, but hundreds. It gets even worse, if we read Matthew 5-7 because we see that God’s standard for keeping His Law is quite a bit stricter than anything we would consider fair. So how can we pass God’s test? Well, on our own we can’t. We will fail. In fact, we have all failed time and again. There is only one way we can pass God’s test and that is through Jesus. Jesus is the completion of the law. Only by covering ourselves with Jesus can we pass. I began to ask myself what does this really mean? This week I read James and 1 John. Both of these books stress that if we accept Christ our life must change and conform to His life. I was also reminded of John 8:31, “To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, ‘If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. I began to think about all this and I began to despair. If the Israelites couldn’t even keep four simple instructions how could I hope to keep all of the law and on top of that, hold to Jesus’ teaching? There are just too many things to keep in mind. Then I remembered Jesus words, “for my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” Then I remembered something else he said. I remembered Matthew 22:37-40, “Jesus replied: ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’[c] 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” I realized I don’t have to memorize the entire Pentateuch or struggle to live up to Jesus standard. I just have to remember to simple instructions. They sound simple, but keeping them is by no means simple. Once again the only solution is to clothe ourselves with the love of Jesus. Jesus is the author of love and only Jesus can truly teach us how to love God and others. May God help us to follow His 2 simple instructions – Love Him with all our heart, soul and mind and love our neighbor as ourself. |
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