I invite you to turn with me in your Bible to the book of Exodus and I'd like us to read in the 16th chapter of the book of Exodus. taking up once again our studies in the life of Moses but they seem to be becoming more and more a study in the whole book of Exodus. Let's read together Exodus chapter 16. This is after the Exodus from Egypt and they are now in the wilderness and they journeyed from Elim and all the congregation of the children of Israel came to the wilderness of Sin which is between Elim and Sinai on the 15th day of the second month after they departed from the land of Egypt. Then the whole congregation of the children of Israel complained against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness. And the children of Israel said to them, O that we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the pots of meat and when we ate bread to the full. For you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger. Then the Lord said to Moses, Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you, and the people shall go out and gather a certain quota every day, that I may test them whether they will walk in my law or not. And it shall be on the sixth day that they shall prepare what they bring in, and it shall be twice as much as they gather daily. Then Moses and Aaron said to all the children of Israel, At evening you shall know that the Lord has brought you out of the land of Egypt, and in the morning you shall see the glory of the Lord, for He hears your complaints against the Lord. But what are we that you complain against us? Also Moses said, This shall be seen when the Lord gives you meat to eat in the evening, and in the morning bread to the full. For the Lord hears your complaints which you make against him. And what are we? Your complaints are not against us, but against the Lord. Then Moses spoke to Aaron, Say to all the congregation of the children of Israel, Come near before the Lord, for he has heard your complaints. Now it came to pass, as Aaron spoke to the whole congregation of the children of Israel, that they looked toward the wilderness. And behold, the glory of the Lord appeared in the cloud. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, I have heard the complaints of the children of Israel. Speak to them, saying, At twilight you shall eat meat, and in the morning you shall be filled with bread. And you shall know that I am the Lord your God. So it was that quails came up at evening and covered the camp. And in the morning the dew lay all around the camp. And when the layer of dew lifted, there on the surface of the wilderness was a small round substance as fine as frost on the ground. So when the children of Israel saw it, they said to one another, what is it? For they did not know what it was. And Moses said to them, this is the bread which the Lord has given you to eat. This is the thing which the Lord has commanded. Let every man gather it according to each one's need. one Omer for each person according to the number of persons let every man take for those who are in his tent then the children of Israel did so and gathered some more some less so when they measured it by Omer's now Omer is about two liters he who gathered much had nothing left over and he who gathered little had no lack every man had gathered according to each one's need And Moses said, let no one leave any of it till morning. Notwithstanding, they did not heed Moses. But some of them left part of it until morning, and it bred worms and stank. And Moses was angry with them. So they gathered it every morning, every man according to his need. And when the sun became hot, it melted. So it was on the sixth day that they gathered twice as much bread, two omers for each one. And all the rulers of the congregation came and told Moses. Then he said to them, This is what the Lord has said. Tomorrow is a Sabbath rest, a holy Sabbath to the Lord. Bake what you will bake today and boil what you will boil, and lay up for yourselves all that remains to be kept until morning. So they laid it up till morning as Moses commanded and it did not stink nor were there any worms in it. Then Moses said eat that today for today is a Sabbath to the Lord. Today you will not find it in the field. Six days you shall gather it but on the seventh day the Sabbath there will be none. Now it happened that some of the people went out on the seventh day to gather but they found none. And the Lord said to Moses, How long do you refuse to keep my commandments and my laws? See, for the Lord has given you the Sabbath. Therefore he gives you on the sixth day bread for two days. Let every man remain in his place. Let no man go out of his place on the seventh day. So the people rested on the seventh day. And the house of Israel called its name Manna, and it was like white coriander seed, and the taste of it was like wafers made with honey. Then Moses said, This is the thing which the Lord has commanded. Fill an omer with it to be kept for your generations, that they may see the bread which I fed you in the wilderness when I brought you out of the land of Egypt. And Moses said to Aaron, take a pot and put an omer of manna in it and lay it up before the Lord to be kept for your generations. As the Lord commanded Moses, so Aaron laid it up before the testimony to be kept. And the children of Israel ate manna forty years until they came to an inhabited land. They ate manna until they came to the border of the land of Canaan. Now an omer is one tenth of an ephah. In our previous study we considered the background and the circumstances of the giving of the manna and I mentioned that a darker background could hardly be found and you find it described in verses 2 and 3 of the 16th chapter. The whole congregation of the children of Israel complained against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness. And the children of Israel said to them, O that we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the pots of meat, and when we ate bread to the full, for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger. And they've fallen once again into a spirit of murmuring and of complaint. And that spirit of murmuring and complaint is something which affected them for many, many years. And you will remember in our last study we saw that their murmuring spirit produced a selective memory. Here they are looking back on their time in Egypt and they are speaking as if Egypt was the most wonderful place in the world. They could not remember what it was really like in Egypt. All the hardship, all the slavery, all the oppression, all the difficulties. All the persecution, all of that is forgotten in this selective memory, which is often accompanied with a murmuring spirit. And they say, oh it was wonderful in Egypt. And then the murmuring spirit had a faulty perspective. They couldn't see that the God who was their God, who was the God of Providence, had placed them where they were. It's almost as if they have now ignored the pillar of cloud and the pillar of fire, which were the visible tokens of the presence of God among his people in the wilderness. God said, they will be a reminder to you that I am with you in your midst and you will be guided and led by them. And they've now forgotten that. They've lost their perspective as to who God is and what God is doing. They could see Moses and they could see Aaron. And so in their murmuring and their complaints, they murmur and complain against them. When we can't get at God himself very often, it's the easiest thing to get at his servants. And eventually, because of the way they did this, Moses was broken by their complaining spirit. And then we saw that their murmuring spirit produced a defective faith. They were at a place where they could not believe that the Lord was able to keep them and to deliver them and to provide for them in this situation. They couldn't believe that he could take care of the needs of his people. It's an astonishing thing when you think about it. Now instead of dealing with them severely, the Lord, we are now told, gave them the gift, first of all of quails and then of manna. and it was given every morning in the form of small round grains or flakes and it appeared when the dew disappeared from the ground. It is described as being like coriander seed, white, and the taste of it was like wafers made with honey. In the book of Numbers we are told that it tasted like fresh oil. The Psalmist in Psalm 78 says, He rained down manna on them to eat, and gave them of the bread from heaven, men at angels' food. He sent them food to the full. Now we notice that the word manna comes from two Hebrew words which may be rendered, what is this? or this is a gift. In fact, the Israelites didn't know what it was. There was an element of mystery about it. And so they called it manna. Now this morning, I want to take the study a little bit further and look at some of the conditions that God lays down here for the gathering of the manna and then some of the further lessons that we can gain from the giving of the manna. Look at the conditions for the gathering of the manna. The first thing that you notice in verse 16 to verse 18 is that it was to be available to every one of them. This is the thing which the Lord has commanded. Let every man gather it according to each one's need. One Omer for each person according to the number of persons. Let every man take for those who are in his tent. And the children of Israel did so and gathered some more and some less. When they measured it by Omers, he who gathered much had nothing left over and he who gathered little had no lack. Every man had gathered according to each one's need. The care of God over them was such that every person was taken care of. There wasn't one Israelite that was overlooked or forgotten. Each person was able to obtain their own portion for every day. Every morning the manna was there, just where and when they needed it. There wasn't a man, a woman or a child in that vast multitude of people and we're talking in terms collectively of a few million people here. There wasn't one person who was unable to feed on the manna and that lasted for the whole 40 years. that they were in the wilderness. It was an amazing, a remarkable providence of Almighty God. Now the relevance of that this morning is that if you are a Christian, you are able to say that this God is our God. forever and ever. He will be our guide even unto death. He's able to do exceeding abundantly above all that you can ask or even think. This is the God that you love, the God that you follow, the God that you worship. So the manna was available to each one and then we are told that the manna was sufficient for each one. There was always enough for them all. The manna seemed to swell, it seemed to increase. so that there was exactly enough to meet the individual needs of every person. So that the Israelite who went out and raked up the manna with both of his hands, thinking that he would take far more than he required, he discovered that when he got back to his tent, he had exactly the amount that he and his family could eat and no more. The rest of it had gone, it had evaporated, nothing was left over, above the amount that he needed for himself and his family. His poor neighbour, who might have been a weak, frail, handicapped man, suffering greatly in his health, and who could only scrape a little bit together in a basin, he found that somehow, when he got back to his tent, that God had made it swell so that he had enough for a day's supply. It was sufficient for each one of them. And it was an amazing provision of God that went on for 40 years. 40 years! You go back 40 years if you can in your life. All of those years, every day, And you may be thinking that that must have been a wonderful thing to experience. That here is the pillar of cloud, the pillar of fire, here is God providing us food every morning, every day. And you may be thinking, what a wonderful thing to have experienced. Well, maybe you would have liked it just as long as they liked it. Because they soon got fed up with it. and they start grumbling and complaining about it. And such is the human heart that we can so easily take the goodness of God for granted. And once you take the goodness of God for granted, I may say this, We're here in this lovely building, and we may feel a little cooler this morning. I never ever thought I would come to Florida and preach to a congregation that are dressed like people in Glasgow. But we have a wonderful facility that God has given. The moment you take this for granted, it is sin. To take the goodness of God for granted is sin. And it very, very easily leads on to grumbling and complaining. And then the thing that was once regarded as being the most wonderful thing in the world, we begin to despise. So here are some of the lessons that we are learning from this incident. Look at what is said in verse 19. Moses said, let no one leave any of it till morning. In other words, you must gather it every day. You are not allowed to have a store of manna as you might have in your refrigerator today. You've got enough to see through the cold weather and so on. You can't hoard it. You can't lay it up in your tent. God says you must gather it every day. The people must gather it every day. Now that was a test. It was also a trial for them. It was a lesson to teach them their daily dependence upon the Lord. And it was obviously a test to their faith. Can they trust God to provide for them each and every day? Can they live one day at a time under the hand and the provision of God? And one Jewish Rabbi comments on why the Lord didn't give them enough for a year at a time. And he relates this parable. Once there was a king who had a son to whom he gave a yearly allowance on the same day each year. But it soon happened that the day on which the allowance was due was the only day of the year when the father saw his son. And so the king changed his plan and gave his son daily supplies. And then the son visited his father every morning. Thus did God with Israel. And there is a great truth in that. The Israelites are being taught daily dependence upon God. That was the pattern that our Lord Jesus gives in his model prayer. Give us this day our daily bread. We need to recognize that we are dependent day by day upon Almighty God and the providence of Almighty God and so that we need to come to Him daily. I mentioned last time that in the school of God, one lesson that we are taught is that the spiritual life is a present reality and not a future anxiety. And I think that's a lesson that a lot of us need to learn, the preacher included. The Christian life is a present reality and not a future anxiety. We so often worry about tomorrow and next week and next month and next year. We are saved from the burdens of the past and we are saved from the anxieties of the future so that we may live fully in the present. trusting God, walking with Him, recognizing our daily sufficiency from Him. Now you will notice in verse 20 that we see that there was a deep-seated distrust still entrenched in these people. Notice the first word of verse 20, notwithstanding. Notwithstanding, they did not heed Moses, but some of them left part of it until morning, and it bred worms and stank, and Moses was angry with them. Distrust, unbelief is still entrenched within their heart. They gathered more when they shouldn't have. And then you will notice in verse 27 that they failed to gather when they should have. It's a double unbelief. It's a double unwillingness to submit themselves to the Word of God. They are trusting and acting according to natural, carnal, human considerations, expecting spiritual provisions to operate in accordance with natural laws. And many of the Lord's people act like that in the Christian life, in church life, in worship and so on. God's provision and God's work and God's worship and God's service, they must be governed by His directions and not according to our own natural assumptions and our own carnal presumptions. And we have often said in not often but from time to time we have said in our church business meetings when you're looking at a budget for a year how God supplies and we say we give thanks to God we sing the doxology God's mathematics are not the same as your mathematics and he is able to multiply the loaves and the fishes he is able to do exceeding abundantly above that you can ask or even think We are dealing with spiritual issues. They must be done according to God's directives and not according to our carnal presumptions. Now from verse 21 to verse 30, there is something interesting and very important. We see here that before the law was given, they have not yet come to Mount Sinai, they have not yet received the Ten Commandments. Before the law was given at Sinai, you have the observance of a Sabbath of rest unto the Lord. Now this is well before the giving of the commandments, when God commanded the people to keep or to preserve the Sabbath in the Fourth Commandment. But here you are beginning to see the principle of Sabbath observance is already established. It has been established from the time of creation. When God rested from all the work of the creation that he had done, he rested in his finished work. Now that emphasis on God's finished work is the thing that undergirds the whole principle of Sabbath keeping. When Jesus died and rose again for our sins, when he died and rose on the first day of the new week, what had happened? His work of salvation was completed. It was finished. He cried on the cross, it is finished. So Christians now, on the first day of the week, we rest and we keep it a holy day. We do so as a reminder to ourselves and to the entire world that our faith rests in the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now the same principle is being seen here in the story of the manna. God has provided totally for the provision of his people's new life. They've been redeemed from Egypt. God is now providing totally for that new life. And as a token of that full provision, he is saying that no manna was to take place or to be gathered on the Sabbath. Indeed, the people were told that there would be no manna there to be gathered on the Sabbath day. And you will notice in verse 29 that the emphasis upon both the Sabbath and the manna is that it was a gift. See, for the Lord has given you the Sabbath. Therefore He gives you on the sixth day bread for two days. Let every man remain in his place. Let no man go out of his place on the seventh day. Later on we are going to find out that it is a law But at this point, God is saying, this is a gift. It is a means of blessing. It is a means of rest. It is a means of refreshment. It is a means of comfort to my people. Look at what it says in verse 24. So they laid it up till morning as Moses commanded, and it did not stink, nor were there any worms in it. Now most of the people, from that verse it seems that most of the people obeyed what God had said through Moses and they proved the trustworthiness of God. They did what God had said concerning the Sabbath and they proved God. But sad to say there were those then as there are now who think that they know better than the Lord what is good for them concerning this day. Look at what it says in verse 27. Now it happens that some of the people went out on the seventh day to gather, but they found none. And they didn't seem to have any pangs of conscience about their disobedience. Just as many Christians blatantly disregard the fourth commandment without any pangs of conscience. But look at what it says in verse 28. And the Lord said to Moses, How long do you refuse to keep my commandments and my law? Now that was not a personal rebuke to Moses. Because Moses certainly would not have gathered manna on the Sabbath. It was a reminder to those Israelites and to us that God is concerned about the obedience of His commandments. It is also a reminder to them and to us that the people of God are one. And the sins of those who were breaking the Sabbath affected the rest. The people of God are one. And the sins of some affect the many. And that will be demonstrated in the situation, or was demonstrated in Joshua chapter 7, where Achan, and the sin of Achan affected the whole of the Israelites. The secret sin of one man brought disgrace to the whole company. Now I want to say this carefully, but I want to say it earnestly. that I believe that the casual, deliberate violation of the Lord's Day by professing Christians is one of the greatest blights upon the Christian Church. There are many believers who are not only breaking it themselves, but they encourage others to break it by causing other people to work unnecessarily on that day. Is it not possible for Christians to eat at home on the Lord's Day instead of making others in restaurants and supermarkets work? Is it not possible for you to plan the week so that you don't have to go to a restaurant on the Lord's Day? Is it not possible that you don't have to buy and sell on the Lord's Day? Is it not possible, is it absolutely essential that you travel on the Lord's Day? Now some people have to. But ask yourselves the question. because I believe that the violation of the Sabbath is one of the greatest hindrances to the pouring out of the Spirit of God upon the church and upon the nation. Listen to what God is saying here. How long do you refuse to keep my commandments and my laws? And it is the height of spiritual wisdom to listen to what God is saying. Now, the matter of the Sabbath observance could take up a whole series of sermons. But let me just mention one or two of the things that we must think about here. There is a fundamental distinction between the Sabbath day and the other days. And that was to be a salutary reminder to the Israelites. This day is different because you are different. God has separated you unto himself and you will notice in verse 23 it is described as a Sabbath unto the Lord it is his day not ours and it is important to him before it is blessed by him to his people it is his pleasure that is foremost in our keeping of this day that is the heart of the Sabbath question It is a day when the Lord takes special pleasure in His people. So if we are going to absent ourselves from the worship of God, or if we are going to engage in those things which do not relate to the glorifying of God, these are things which cannot possibly please Him. It is the neglecting of His day. And when we neglect His day and violate the sanctity of His day, we are not only hurting ourselves, we are grieving Him. and we are depriving him of the pleasure for which he has created us and for which he has redeemed us. So that we need to get fixed in our minds that the Sabbath is not an imposition which is placed upon us by God so that we reluctantly engage in it with an unwilling mind and an unwilling heart. God is saying it is a day of blessing. It is the day when I have purposed to bless you as my people. It is a day when I will give myself in a special way to you as my people in terms of refreshment and renewal and blessing. And one of the commentators says this, having completed the days of creation, he appoints a day in which he is free for that creation and he invites his creation to join with him in the enjoyment of it. It is as if God is saying, I have a whole day with nothing to do but to give myself to you, so let's enjoy it together. Now, if we have that kind of concept about the Sabbath day, use another human analogy. If you're expecting visitors to your home, going to have somebody to stay for a week or two weeks or so on, you plan your work ahead. so that you've attended to everything, everything is up to date, so that you will have as much time as possible to spend with your visitors, with your friends. Now that is the whole point of the instructions concerning the Sabbath. God is intent on spending time with his people. Why? So that he might enjoy them. and so that they might enjoy him in a very special way now that doesn't mean for one moment that he doesn't care for his people and that he doesn't take notice of us on any other day of the week of course he does but on this one day he delights to spend it in a special way with those who are his own now I trust if we had that kind of thinking with regard to the Lord's Day that we have a consciousness that we are meeting with this kind of God then we would live more for Sunday than we do. So having considered some of the conditions for the gathering of the manna, let me just point out one or two further lessons. Let me remind you, we have no time to turn to it this morning, maybe one day a full exposition will be given by one of the pastors on John chapter 6, where the manna is referred to. And Jesus refers to it In his relationship to the manna, he says, I am that bread of life. Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness and are dead. This is the bread which comes down from heaven that a man may eat thereof and not die. I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever. And the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world. Now in that chapter in John, the Jews were challenging our Lord to show them a sign that will prove to them that He was the Son of God. They'd already seen the miracle of the feeding of the 5,000. They'd seen it, but they hadn't seen the significance of it. They'd been very impressed by it. But their main concern was for that which is visible. That which is carnal, that which is satisfying to the physical appetites. And so Christ is showing to them, He is the living bread which their souls require. And He is saying, if you would have eternal life, then you must receive and you must accept Me. You must know what it is to feed on Me. And it's a reminder to us that in salvation, Christ is the one we receive. And when we receive Him, we receive eternal life. We receive spiritual life. When you look at Exodus 16, verse 4, you'll see that the manna was a test of Israel's spiritual condition. God says, I will do this, He says, I shall reign from heaven for you and the people shall go out and gather a certain quota that I may test them whether they will walk in my law or not. So it needed, on the part of the Israelites, it needed a heart. If they are going to be tested and found approved by this instruction concerning the manna. They needed a heart that was weaned away from Egypt and the memory of Egypt and the life of Egypt and all the influences of Egypt in order that they might be able to be satisfied with the bread that God is now giving them on their pilgrim journey. He is raining it down from heaven. Now, in point of fact, we know that these people were not always satisfied with the manna. They came to despise it, they pronounced it as light food. We are told that they lusted after the flesh pots of Egypt. Now, think of that in relation to John chapter 6. Our Lord Jesus Christ is saying, I am the wilderness food for my people. It is the privilege of all those who are redeemed to feed upon me. I am the true bread of life who has come down from heaven. He is the one who gives life, he nourishes life, and he sustains spiritual life. And needless to say, it is obvious that if you are going to enjoy such a provision as that, Your heart needs to be weaned away from the things of this present evil world. And the more a professing Christian is seeking after the things of the world for his satisfaction, the more he will regard Christ as light food. And what they are doing is that they are ministering to that part of their nature which they ought to mortify. New life in Christ will show itself in a desire to crucify the old man with his deeds and to feed more and more upon Christ, who is the bread of life to our souls. If you take that analogy into the realm of nature, you discover that the more you exercise, the more you have an appetite. In the spiritual realm, the more we exercise our spiritual faculties, the more we will find a need to feed upon Christ. It is one thing to know that you have life in Christ and that you have forgiveness of sins and so on. It is another thing to continually feed upon Him by faith. making him the exclusive food for your soul. Now that is a great problem for Christians. Those who profess that they have found pardon, they have found peace in Christ, but in reality they are feeding on a variety of things which have little or no connection with Christ at all. And the question has to be asked, by each and every one of us concerning the things that we devote so much of our time to. Are these things ministering Christ to my soul? Do I find Christ in them? Do they help me to live a life which is worthy of Him and which is pleasing to Him? Am I feeding upon Him? Am I giving my time to those things that feed my spiritual nature? And the only way that that can happen is when I take time and make the effort to feed upon Him. If I neglect my Bible and at the same time I can find time for my computer, then surely there is no doubt about the real condition of my soul. If I can spend hours on Facebook and give minutes to the Saviour, who is the Lord of my life, then there is something radically wrong. I cannot be a spiritual or the spiritual person that God wants me to be if I am not feeding upon Christ. We are told that the manna came down with the dew and when the sun came up, it vanished. In other words, those Israelites had to rise early. and they had to go out and collect their daily food, because it had to be fresh every morning. God sent the manna, but they had to get up and get out of bed and go out and collect it every morning. God is not the benefactor of idleness. His rule is if a man will not work, then he will not eat. And so they had to go out every day and collect their daily food. And yes, today's manna would not suffice for today. And today's manna would not be available for tomorrow. And all of these things, says the writers of the New Testament, are spiritual lessons. And they're speaking about our relationship to Christ. That we need to feed upon Him daily. He must be given the priority in our lives. And in this day and age of technology and rush and bustle and so many pressures upon our time and so on, if we are going to do that, then we need to seek Him early. If you are going to get the quietness to do so. The Lord has said, they that seek me early shall find me. And we must avail ourselves of the means of grace. Thinking about this in the Sunday school class. Coming to Him. Communing with Him. Thinking about Him. Learning of Him. Day by day and every day. Now look at what it says in verse 19 and verse 20. Moses said, let no one leave any of it till morning. Notwithstanding they did not heed Moses but some of them left part of it until morning and it bred worms and stank and Moses was angry with them. Don't seek to live on yesterday's experience of Christ today. Last year's manna will not give you nourishment today. There is nothing worse than a cold meal, when it should be hot. And there is nothing worse than people who are living on stale experiences of Christ. What they used to be, what they used to do, what they used to know. Ask yourself the question, what is Christ to me today? What has Christ done for my soul today? How do I stand in relation to Christ now? What have I learned from Christ's word today? And if we don't put the truth that we feed upon to use in our lives, then it will be of no use. We are to put the things that we learn about Christ into use. It's wonderful to understand theories, but there are many theorists about The kind of person who makes a great deal of show about their knowledge of the scriptures and their grasp of doctrine and their power in prayer, but in everyday situations, experimental, experiential Christianity, when the time of tragedy comes, when the time of adversity comes, when the time of trial comes, they don't seem to be able to put all of this knowledge that they've learned into effect in their lives. They are simply theorists. Why? Because they are not communing with Christ. And what passes itself off as devotion is simply an intellectual passion for theology. It is not the outworking of grace in godly living. And you can give the impression that you are extremely diligent in the spiritual life, In the same way as an Israelite might be so diligent that he gathered more manna than he needed for the one day, he might appear to be accumulating manna far more diligently than anybody else. But every bit over the day supply was useless. It was worse than useless because it bred worms and it stank. We have to put what we learn of Christ into practice in our lives. And true spirituality is feeding upon Christ. I am the bread of life, he says. Not theories about Christ. I am the bread of Christ. As important and as necessary as doctrine and theory is, these are the things which lead us to Christ. We must feed on Christ. Do you remember the wonderful psalm 45? The psalmist tells us at the beginning of that psalm, my heart is indicting a good matter, I speak of the things that I have seen touching the king, or I have discovered, I have made, he says, touching. I've been studying about Christ. I've been working at it, I've been thinking about it. And he says, my tongue is like the pen of a ready writer. I'm ready to write it down and tell you all about it. But then there is a very important and vital distinction between verse 2 and verse 3. Thou art fairer than all the sons of men. Thou art fairer. It's as if Christ is there with him. And as he is going to write about Christ, tell us about Christ, Christ appears to him. And he's taken up with his union with Christ. We are united to Christ. We live with Christ. We live in the presence of Christ. We devote ourselves to Christ. We read the Bible so that beyond the sacred page we see Christ. We come to prayer meetings so that we are meeting with Christ. We come to worship on the Lord's Day so that we can exalt Christ. And so Jesus says, I am the bread of life. You must come to me. You must feed on me. And then you will notice in closing that at the end of the chapter Moses is commanded to preserve a part of this manor as a perpetual memorial and a reminder to them and a reminder to future generations. He says it was taken, it was obviously written well after the incident had happened, because he says it was taken and placed in the testimony, in the ark. And that ark was to be at the centre of the tabernacle and then of the temple. And the ark with the ten laws, the word of God, and the ark which contained this pot of manna, What are they doing? They are symbolizing something. And here is the manner. It is symbolizing that they are feeding on Christ. They are living in accordance to the word of Christ. In the same way, at the very heart of Christian worship, we have the Lord's table. It reminds us of an all-sufficient Savior. We feed on this Christ who is symbolized in broken bread and poured out wine. We feed on this Christ. There is this glorious symbolism. The pot of manna is alongside the tables of the law and the association of ideas is extremely impressive. It is through the word of God, by the gracious operations of the Holy Spirit of God, that the sufficiency of Christ's atoning work is mediated to us in such a way that our souls are fed and they are nourished. And God in Christ has made a wonderful provision for our souls. And our greatest blessing and our truest good and our lasting satisfaction is to be found in Him. I am the bread of life. He that comes to me shall never hunger. He that believes on me shall never thirst. Your fathers did eat manna and are dead. I am the bread of life. He that eats of this bread shall live forever. Well I trust that you know what it is to have come to him and that you know what it is to feed on him and that you know what it is to feed and to live for Christ alone because in that tremendous moment just before you enter into eternity and you're about to see him face to face The most important thing will be Christ. Christ alone. I have no other argument. I need no other plea. It will be enough at that moment that Jesus died and that he died for me. Are you able to say that? I pray God with all my heart that you will and that you will live for him. And I would urge you carefully, kindly, with love in my heart, and with pastoral care, if you are a professing Christian, remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. Let's bow together in prayer. Our gracious God and our loving Heavenly Father how we thank you that as we read the story of redemption in your holy word there are so many of us and we are able to say this God is our God forever and ever and he will be our guide and provider until death and then after death We shall be in His presence where there is fullness of joy, and at His right hand where there are pleasures forevermore. Bless your word to all of our hearts, we pray, in Jesus' precious and worthy and hallowed name. Amen.