So, I get a call late one night, it is the sister of a good friend of mine – she never calls. There is a long pause after I answer. Then a little chit chat, then quickly comes the news: A childhood friend of mine, her sister, has just died of lung failure, she was only 38. I’m floored. I’m not sure what to say to this woman.
Another friend, he arrives in the afternoon at his restaurant just to see how things are going for the day. No one is working, and not a soul is in the place. How strange. His manager takes him aside to tell him that his partner has left the country with all of their assets, everything. In an instant, he faces bankruptcy.
I arrive at the hospital to congratulate a young couple on the birth of their little baby boy. As I enter the room, I find out their little boy, this seemingly perfect little boy, has a rare muscular disorder and only has hours to live.
All these people are very real. All these people, are people who are following God. They are people who have given their lives over to God and have really tried hard to do the right thing, be the right kind of person…..And instead of turning left and going into the promise land, God has had them turn right and now they find themselves out in the desert.
They are numb about what has happened, they are angry about what has happened, they are let down by how things have turned out, or maybe they are at a loss of how they should feel.
There are times in our lives where we find ourselves standing out in a dry spiritual time. Sometimes it is a dramatic event like I mentioned to throw us out in the desert, sometimes things just piles up, sometimes we just turn around and find ourselves feeling distant from God, thirsty or more, but no matter what we do, we are in a dry spiritual time of life.
Here in our passage, we find the Hebrew people in such a situation. They are about two and a half months into their journey from Egypt at this point in chapter 16, and it dawns on the Hebrews that this is NOT what they had agreed to. They are stuck in a place they never wanted to be in and they are not happy about it. Now, not only is there no easy way out of this dry harsh land, but they are also out of supplies, they have depleted all the food they took from Egypt.
We see in verses 2-3 that everyone complains, and you know what, their complaints are right on the money. After crossing the Red Sea the Hebrews could have taken a left turn and made it to the Promise Land in about three days, but God leads them to turn right into a land that is dry and harsh, a difficult place to live in. God leads them to a land that, quite frankly, could not possibly support such a large number of people. God, He leads the Hebrews out to certain death. (v3) “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.” That may sound melodramatic, but it really is the truth….as they remember it. It is very true that they are now in a situation where they are completely helpless. Understand that there is no physical way that this large number of people can survive out in the desert, their situation is hopeless, they are out of luck – why would God do this to them? Why would God lead them into the desert instead of into a land of blessing? We’ll get to that in a bit, but first understand that though the situation the Hebrews are in at the moment is very bad, their view of the past is not accurate.
A few months before they were slaves living in poverty. They were oppressed, ignorant, uneducated, treated worse than livestock and could only look forward to a demeaning and demoralizing life. But what they remember is the great food they had in Egypt. Really, what they are saying here is that life might have been hard in Egypt, but at least they weren’t facing starvation. But you know, they cried out to God, and God answered. They are now in God’s hands, not the hands of the Egyptians, and that at the moment means being in the desert with no humanly possible way for things to work out. This my friends, as hard as it is to hear, is true for us too. If you are in a desert, if you are in a dry time, my guess is that it is not a mistake, God has lead you there.
Katie and I moved into an a small student apartment. The kitchen was tiny…well everything was tight, compact, and everything was pink, with glitter embedded everywhere - the sink, the bathtub, the toilet, the cabinets, even the kitchen and bathroom floor. We had loud neighbors who fought like cats and dogs. We had neighbors who literally, (I kid you not), set off the building fire alarm everyday and we even had one neighbor that played bagpipes everyday at exactly 5:00 p.m., and worst of all, it was in New Jersey. Oh how we missed our old place.
Back in California we had this wonderful rental, a two bedroom cottage sitting on about 2 acres. It was quite romantic. A creek wound around the house, ivy grew over the front porch - there were several California live oak trees that towered over the house easily reaching over 150 feet. In the back, there was a shaded brick patio overlooking the creek…deer, squirrels, a lot of birds and it was three minutes from the freeway. We had wonderful neighbors and lots of peace and quiet.
Sometimes we would sit in our New Jersey apartment and wonder if we had made a wise decision to move.
What we chose to forget was that the romantic wandering creek was home to water rats that would not only run through our walls at night, but would also scratch on the bottom of the tub in the bathroom (THAT was a creepy experience). We chose to forget that the water in the shower would slow to a drip if any other water source was used. We chose to forget that we had to use a bungee cord to hold the oven door closed. We chose to forget that to turn on the heat in this house we had to take two wires sticking out of the wall (no kidding) and clip them together with an alligator clip – I got shocked every single time – then, jump on the floor three times to light the heater (I am not making this up) and we chose to forget that an acorn falling from over 100 feet, really, really hurts. Oh, and after the 1989 earthquake the house leaned somewhat toward the creek.
This complaint, no matter how legitimate the complaint is, this complaint that the Hebrews make is not a casual gripe, but it is a type of unbelief that calls into question the election of God’s people. In other words they are saying to God, “Looking around us and seeing the circumstances that you have placed us in, it is clear to us, that you are NOT taking care of us - as you promised.”
Have you ever felt that way?
I think that is a pretty normal way to feel when we are dire circumstances. I also think that is pretty normal to feel that way when we face plain old disappointment. The tragedy is, that sometimes folks express these kinds of feelings to God…and then turn and walk away from Him – as if my present circumstances somehow prove the validity of God. That’s crazy.
Well, what is God’s response to this kind of accusation against Him? Is He furious? Is He going to let ‘em have it? NO, verse 4, God says, “I will rain down bread from heaven for you… I will test them”. Verse 12, “‘At twilight you will eat meat, and in the morning you will be filled with bread. Then you will know that I am the LORD your God.’” God is not furious, He is not out to get them for their complaining – see it turns out that God is a bit more mature than we are. We find ourselves in a dry time, we find ourselves in a place with no way out, and like the Hebrews we wake up and realize that realistically, there is not a thing we can do – and it is true.
The Hebrews had taken so much from the Egyptians, whatever they could carry. Food, gold, treasures, animals, but the food had run out by this point two and a half months later and what good are jewels and gold in the desert? See from a material perspective the Hebrews are very rich, in fact they are richer than their wildest dreams. As they were leaving Egypt, their neighbors showered them with tremendous wealth, hoping that their gifts would pacify this God who had thrown ten terrible plagues at them. By all calculations they all are set for life, but prosperity wasn’t the cure for their difficulties. All their stuff wasn’t going to help much. If they would have ended up anywhere else, these people would have lived like kings. You can just see the plan of God for their lives: They have lived through hard times as slaves; God by His hand intervened by providing a way out and has given them material blessings beyond their wildest dreams – Now on to the Promise Land, for a life of living large. But instead they stand among rocks and dust.
This is exactly where God wants them. And I hate to say it, but this is exactly where God wants us too.
See, like us, they have lived a life where they have worked hard, they have gotten by, they have survived, they have overcome and now all of their experience and all of their wealth and all of everything they have depended in their life upon is completely useless.
Have you ever noticed, we always turn to God when all other options are exhausted?
They are in an impossible situation, taken there by God, I might add, and now they stand before God restless, angry and put out, because as they see it – nothing can be done…and God says wait and watch for what will happen next!
Manna appears all around the camp the next morning. Now understand that they had no concept of what God was going to do the next morning, so they worry all night. Parents fret about their children, folks wonder how in the world they are going to feed their family the next day – and God allows that worry to happen, God allows that time of waiting, that time of uncertainty, and He will allow that time of waiting and uncertainty in our lives too.
So you can imagine, they get up the next morning and there is this stuff all over the ground. Now, being me, my first thought is, “How sanitary is this? You expect me to pick up this stuff that is laying in the dirt and eat it? Look, I won’t even take the food samples they hand out at Costco, I’m not sure I would be too excited about manna laying in the dirt”. Apparently the sanitary issue is of no concern to the Hebrews, so they pick the stuff up and say “Mann Ha” which in Hebrew means, “What is it?” Isn’t that great? The word manna means, “What is it?”
Now don’t try to figure out what it is as some scholars have speculated over the years: Is it some sort of fungus, or weed or even grasshoppers – that kind of speculation is absurdly funny, because it misses the point of what is happening here. See, there is no possible way that this land they are camped in can support this huge amount of people, for even one day and the solution to the impossible problem is not a natural solution, there is no natural solution. Folks, this is an impossible situation that calls for an impossible solution and the solution is not natural, the solution is….supernatural. This is why the stuff they gather is called, “What is it?” Manna is so other worldly, so weird, so unnatural, so different than anything they have ever seen before that they cannot come up with anything to compare it too. So the name “what is it?” sticks. There is no other possible way to describe it, because it is supernatural.
Do you understand what God is saying here? You cannot see a way through your personal dry desert, because there is NOT a way through, there is not a way that you, or anyone else on this planet earth can find a way through. Because the solution here is not a natural solution. Getting through dry times in life is not accomplished through the use of common everyday household items. Getting through dry times, my friends is not done by the use of your wits, your education, your determination, or the power of positive thinking. Getting through dry times requires a supernatural solution.
So they go out and gather this manna. They are to gather an omer per person. Now I know an omer sounds like the name of a Norwegian – “ello my name is Omer”, but it is a Hebrew dry measurement. The ephah was their base standard of dry measurement which is 22 liters. So each person was to gather enough manna to fill a little more than one two liter soda bottle. That’s a lot of manna.
Now here we see some great application for our lives today. Notice God’s supernatural solution does not get them out of the desert. They are still stuck in that hot dry land. God’s supernatural solution gets them through one day and only one day. Manna in the morning, they make it through the day, quail in the evening, they make it through the night. The quail by the way, is also a supernatural phenomena and cannot be explained in a rational way. See, God gave them only as much as they needed one day at a time, one night at a time. God provides a way for them to live in the desert, to live in the dry times, He does not provide a way out.
Also notice this: Ex. 16:17 “The Israelites did as they were told; some gathered much, some little. 18 And when they measured it by the omer, he who gathered much did not have too much, and he who gathered little did not have too little. Each one gathered as much as he needed.” Do you see that? God provides, just, enough. God is not going to fix their plight, but God is going to provide the way of making it through. Let me say that again, God is not going to fix their plight, but God is going to provide the way of making it through.
So, you are in a dry, disappointing time and you come before God and ask Him to fix things, of course you do, you’re an American, we specialize in getting things fixed. But you know, and some of you know this well, sometimes things cannot be fixed, sometimes they way things are, is the way things are and for the moment at least, they are NOT going to change.
Also note that manna falls right before dawn, It falls during the darkest hour of the night. God allows the Hebrews to go through a dark time before He provides. You can imagine they wake up every morning wondering, “Will the manna be there this morning? Will God have provided for us this day too?”
God allows the Hebrews to go through dark dry times, and He will, no doubt allow us to go through dark and dry times, and He will no doubt allow us to wonder if the manna will appear the next morning. He will not just step in and fix things.
Why would God do such a thing like this? Why would God take these people who have clearly suffered more than any human ever deserved, why would God take them and place them in a hot, dry, dusty, miserable place…and leave them there? Why would God, who wants to heap mighty blessings upon us – take us, those who truly believe and truly want to follow Him, why would He take us out into a dry spiritual place and leave us there?
Good question. We will be answering that question in detail in the next few weeks. But today let me mention a few things that will shed some light on that question. If God had let the Hebrews turn left and enter the Promise Land in a few days, the Hebrew people would have entered the land with great wealth and resources and who would they have depended upon for the rest of their lives? You can bet your bottom dollar that they would have depended upon themselves and their own resources – God would be an after thought. These Hebrew people had seen their share of miracles, their share of supernatural wonders, but did they really know God, did they really have a relationship with God? No not really, they thought they did, but see, they knew about God, but they didn’t know God. So now, God is going to take them on a journey, on a journey through a hot, dry, dusty desert, and on this journey He is going to allow all kinds of things to happen.
Now quite frankly, some will fail, some will not make it. They will be stubborn, disobedient, self righteous and life will be miserable. But others, others will walk out in the morning and gather their omer of manna, they will gather their share of quail. They will take the provision of God and make it through another dry day in the desert. They will wait and, they will wait, and they will rise in great expectation of what God will do in the future…and they will one day walk out of the desert, they will cross the river Jordan and they will be fully aware that the Lord God has been, and ever will be, with them, every step of the way.
