We Overcome When God Provides
Exodus 16:1-18
Introduction
When you come to a place where the answer is unclear, the options are exhausted, and the next step is obscured by impossibilities, then watch for the provision of God.
This is the predicament of the children of Israel. They watched God visit 10 plages upon Egypt. They escaped slavery, walked through the Red Sea. They observed as bitter waters were made drinkable. About a month into their journey they were getting hungry and had no food to eat. The answer is unclear, the options are exhausted, the next steps are obscured by impossibilities.
This is a food crisis that becomes a faith crisis.
Exodus 16:1-3 Then the whole community of Israel set out from Elim and journeyed into the wilderness of Sin, between Elim and Mount Sinai. They arrived there on the fifteenth day of the second month, one month after leaving the land of Egypt. 2 There, too, the whole community of Israel complained about Moses and Aaron. 3 “If only the Lord had killed us back in Egypt,” they moaned. “There we sat around pots filled with meat and ate all the bread we wanted. But now you have brought us into this wilderness to starve us all to death.”
Terence Fretheim: “How common it is among the people of God that a crisis, whether of daily need or physical suffering, occasions a crisis of faith. Material and spiritual well-being are more closely linked than we often care to admit.” Bruggeman: This story of manna is not for all of life. It is for life in those zones of bereftness when the problem is not self-sufficiency but despair, need, and anxiety.
1 John 5:4 “…For everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith.”
How do we overcome when face the obstacles and roadblocks that seem to have no answer at all? Grumbling and complaining won’t help at all. But help is available to those who need the strength to overcome!
1. Read The Word
Exodus 16:4-5 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Look, I’m going to rain down food from heaven for you. Each day the people can go out and pick up as much food as they need for that day. I will test them in this to see whether or not they will follow my instructions. On the sixth day they will gather food, and when they prepare it, there will be twice as much as usual.”
Whenever Moses is at the edge of the journey with no answers, God speaks. God assures food is going to rain down from heaven. Everyone will have what they need. There will be instructions.
All of us have a Word from the Lord available to us.
Psalm 119:81 I am worn out waiting for your rescue, but I have put my hope in your word.
Psalm 119:105 Your word is a lamp to guide my feet and a light for my path.
Psalm 119:133 Guide my steps by your word, so I will not be overcome by evil.
Big Question: In the moment of trial, when it counts the most, will we be guided by a Word from the Lord?
Spurgeon: "Be not idlers with the Word of God—search it. Get up early in the morning to read your Bible if you cannot do it at other times. Steal from your sleep a happy hour to read the Scriptures. Diligently and earnestly seek the Lord, for He has said, "They that seek Me early shall find Me.""
2. Remember the Lord
Exodus 16:6-8 So Moses and Aaron said to all the people of Israel, “By evening you will realize it was the Lord who brought you out of the land of Egypt. In the morning you will see the glory of the Lord, because he has heard your complaints, which are against him, not against us. What have we done that you should complain about us?”
Then Moses added, “The Lord will give you meat to eat in the evening and bread to satisfy you in the morning, for he has heard all your complaints against him. What have we done? Yes, your complaints are against the Lord, not against us.”
Instead of remembering the food and shelter when they were slaves in Egypt, they should remember the God who rescued them from a terrible existence. We tend to forget that God has carried us through all of our struggles. You have survived 100% of the worst days of your life!
Hebrews 10:35 So do not throw away this confident trust in the Lord. Remember the great reward it brings you!
When we remember the Lord’s blessings, we will forget to complain! They were complaining about Moses and Aaron, but Moses said they were complaining about God.
3. Respond to God’s Glory
Exodus 16:9-12 Then Moses said to Aaron, “Announce this to the entire community of Israel: ‘Present yourselves before the Lord, for he has heard your complaining.’” And as Aaron spoke to the whole community of Israel, they looked out toward the wilderness. There they could see the awesome glory of the Lord in the cloud. Then the Lord said to Moses, 12 “I have heard the Israelites’ complaints. Now tell them, ‘In the evening you will have meat to eat, and in the morning you will have all the bread you want. Then you will know that I am the Lord your God.’”
God is not just present, but is Glorious! They are forgetting the majesty, power, and presence of God among them.
He is among them, leads them, he hears them. God is very aware of their concerns - and yours. Exodus 16:10 says “they could see the awesome glory of the Lord in the cloud.”
Our response to the glory of the Lord is to worship Him. When we are lifting up the name of our powerful God, it’s hard to also complain about our hardships.
Psalm 89:15, 17 Happy are those who hear the joyful call to worship, for they will walk in the light of your presence, Lord. … You are their glorious strength.? It pleases you to make us strong.
Strength to overcome is ours when we Read the Word, Remember the Lord, Respond to his Glory and…
4. Rely on the Lord
Exodus 16:13-16 That evening vast numbers of quail flew in and covered the camp. And the next morning the area around the camp was wet with dew. 14 When the dew evaporated, a flaky substance as fine as frost blanketed the ground. 15 The Israelites were puzzled when they saw it. “What is it?” they asked each other. They had no idea what it was. And Moses told them, “It is the food the Lord has given you to eat. 16 These are the Lord’s instructions: Each household should gather as much as it needs. …
The idea that is presented is that each person could have “enough” - not an overabundance, not left without anything. God provided for them for 40 years! When we are in the complaining mood, we notice what we do not have - what others have - what is out of reach.
Ruffcorn: …we fail to see the abundance that we have.
God has blessed us tremendously - Count Your Blessings! Name them One by One! When we are in the worshiping mood, we notice that God has given us everything we really need.
Conclusion
In Deuteronomy 8:2-3, Moses recalls the giving of Manna and assigns meaning to it.
“Remember how the Lord your God led you through the wilderness for these forty years, humbling you and testing you to prove your character, and to find out whether or not you would obey his commands. 3 Yes, he humbled you by letting you go hungry and then feeding you with manna, a food previously unknown to you and your ancestors. He did it to teach you that people do not live by bread alone; rather, we live by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord..”
Tony Merida: God was not just filling their bellies, He was trying to shepherd their hearts.
John 6:51 I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Anyone who eats this bread will live forever; and this bread, which I will offer so the world may live, is my flesh.”
1 John 5:4 “…For everyone born of God overcomes the world. This is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith.”
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Discussion Questions
1. Terence Fretheim wrote “How common it is among the people of God that a crisis, whether of daily need or physical suffering, occasions a crisis of faith. Material and spiritual well-being are more closely linked than we often care to admit.” In what ways are material and spiritual well being closely linked?
2. What are your biggest challenges in reading the Bible consistently? What kinds of strategies can we come up with to make the Scriptures more a part of our daily lives?
3. Why do you think the acts of God, witnessed by the Israelites, seemed to fade away in their memories? What are some ways we can keep God’s provisions in our lives from fading away in our own thoughts?
4. Worship is recognizing the glory of God and praising him for that. When we gather to worship on Sundays, what kinds of things keep us from being focused on the glory of God? How can we be more focused in corporate worship?
5. How is it going with your personal times of devotion and worship? In what ways can Christians make personal worship a more important part of their lives? What connections do you see between being in the Word, remembering God’s provisions, and offering Him Worship?
6. Several times in this passage, it is noted that the children of Israel were complaining. We are encouraged often in Scripture not to complain and grumble. Why does God care if we grumble? In what ways can our complaints about things that bother us actually be complaints against God?
7. One strategy to overcome the grumbling habit may be to count your blessings - to remain aware of the many ways that God has provided for you. What are some strategies you might suggest to help us focus more on God’s blessings than on the things that move us to complain?
8. Jesus is the living bread that came down from heaven, an obvious reference to manna (John 6:51). What do you think Jesus was saying by this statement?
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Video of this message will be available by searching the YouTube channel of Forsythe Church of Christ.
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Resources
Brueggemann, Walter. The Book of Exodus. The New Interpreter’s Bible Commentary, Volume One. Abingdon, 2015.
Cole, Steven. https://bible.org/seriespage/13-raining-bread-heaven-exodus-161-36
Fretheim, Terence E. Exodus (Interpretation, A Bible commentary for teaching and preaching). John Knox Press, 1991.
Merida, Tony. Exodus: Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary. Holman, 2014.
Ruffcorn, Kevin. https://asanefaith.com/manna-from-heaven/
Spurgeon, Charles.
https://ccel.org/ccel/spurgeon/sermons39/sermons39.xliv.html
Wines, Alphonetta. Commentary
https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/narrative-lectionary/god-provides-manna/commentary-on-exodus-161-18-3
