Let's start reading in chapter 16. And they took their journey from Elim. And all the congregation of the children of Israel came unto the wilderness of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai on the 15th day of the second month after their departing out of the land of Egypt. And the whole congregation of the children of Israel murmured against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness. And the children of Israel said unto them, What to God we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt when we sat by the flesh pots and when we did eat bread to the full. For ye have brought us forth into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger. Then said the Lord unto Moses, behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you and the people shall go out and gather a certain rate every day that I may prove or test them whether they will walk in my law or no. And it shall come to pass that on the sixth day they shall prepare that which they bring in, and it shall be twice as much as they gather daily. And Moses and Aaron said unto all the children of Israel, that even you shall know that the Lord hath brought you out from the land of Egypt. And in the morning, then you shall see the glory of the Lord, that he heareth your murmurings against the Lord. And what are we that ye murmur against us? And Moses said, this shall be when the Lord shall give you in the evening flesh to eat, and in the morning bread to the full, for that the Lord heareth your murmurings, which you murmur against him. And what are we? Your murmurings are not against us, but against the Lord. And Moses spake unto Aaron, saying to all the congregation of the children of Israel, come near before the Lord, for he hath heard your murmurings. And it came to pass, as Aaron spake unto the whole congregation of the children of Israel, that they looked toward the wilderness, and behold, the glory of the Lord appeared in a cloud. And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, I have heard the murmurings of the children of Israel. Speak unto them, saying, at evening ye shall eat flesh, and in the morning ye shall be filled with bread, and ye shall know that I am the Lord your God. And it came to pass that at evening the quails came up and covered the camp, and in the morning the dew lay round about the host. And when the dew that lay was gone up, behold, upon the face of the wilderness there lay a small round thing, as small as the poor frost on the ground. And when the children of Israel saw it, they said one to another, It is manna. For they wist not what it was. And Moses said unto them, This is the bread which the Lord hath given you to eat. This is the thing which the Lord hath commanded. Gather of it every man according to his eating, an omer for every man according to the number of your persons. Take ye every man for them which are in his tents. And the children of Israel did so, and gathered some more, some less. And when they did meet it with an omer, he they gathered much had nothing over. And he they gathered little had no lack. They gathered every man according to his eating. And Moses said, let no man leave of it till the morning. Notwithstanding, they hearkened not unto Moses, but some of them left of it until the morning. And it bred worms and stank, and Moses was wroth with them. And they gathered it every morning, every man according to his eating. And when the sun waxed hot, it melted. And it came to pass that on the sixth day they gathered twice as much bread, two omers for one man, and all the rulers of the congregation came and told Moses. And he said unto them, this is that which the Lord hath said, tomorrow is the rest of the holy Sabbath unto the Lord. Bake that which ye will bake today, and seed that which ye will seed, and that which remaineth over, lay up for you to be kept until the morning. And they laid it up till the morning as Moses paid, and it did not stink, neither was there any worm therein. And Moses said, eat that today, for today is a Sabbath unto the Lord. Today ye shall not find it in the field. Six days ye shall gather it, but on the seventh day, which is the Sabbath, in it there shall be none. And it came to pass that there went out some of the people on the seventh day for to gather, and they found none. And the Lord said unto Moses, How long refuse ye to keep my commandments and my laws? See, for that the Lord hath given you the Sabbath, therefore he giveth you on the sixth day the bread of two days. Abide ye every man 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 the name thereof manna. And it was like coriander seed, white. The taste of it was like wafers made with honey. And Moses said, this is the thing which the Lord commandeth. Fill an omer of it to be kept for your generations that they may see the bread wherewith I fed you in the wilderness when I brought you forth from the land of Egypt. And Moses said unto Aaron, take a pot and put an omer full of manna therein and lay it up before the Lord to be kept for your generations. And as the Lord commanded Moses, so Aaron laid it up before the testimony to be kept. And the children of Israel did eat manna. Forty years until they came to the land, to a land inhabited, they did eat manna until they came onto the borders of the land of Canaan. Now, and Omer is the tenth part of Anipha. All right. Well, there you have it, Exodus chapter 16. And these chapters getting into the typology, looking forward to the new covenant, which they shadow forth just these wonderful illustrations of spiritual realities or according to Hebrews, these heavenly realities. We see that in chapter 15, the Israelites had to learn the lessons of of living the cross centered life. They came out, and even as Moses had said to Pharaoh many chapters before, if you remember back to the beginning of Exodus, when Moses first went to Pharaoh, his request was that they would go out three days in the wilderness and sacrifice to the Lord, or go three days out in the wilderness and worship the Lord. Well, when they finally went out, they came three days out in the wilderness, and what did they find? Bitter water. The bitter water of Mara. And boy, did they learn to worship the Lord. That's where Israel learned to worship the Lord, because you learn to worship the Lord truly when you're not in the Elim, where they were next, you know, where you live, you're kind of in this paradise and everything is smooth sailing. You really learn to worship the Lord at Mara. You really learn to worship the Lord when not everything is nice and cozy, and you worship God and you praise Him in spite of the challenges and the circumstances. Just like Job, when all those things came upon him, the loss of his children and his flocks, and so much Job lost, and even his health was deteriorating. But Job, in the face of that, did not curse God. It says he worshiped. God. He worshiped God at Marah. And how do you worship God? You remember redemption. As Moses was told, he was shown a tree and he cast the tree into the waters and the waters became sweet. Right. The bitter circumstances of this life. I'm going to turn this off. The bitter circumstances of this life become sweet. when we remember the cross of Jesus Christ and how God took the very worst, the most bitter cup, and he worked that very bitterness for our salvation, for the sweetness of salvation for us, that's the cross-centered life. Now, as usual with the Israelites, and we can't be too hard on them because we see ourselves in them so often, it didn't take them long to forget about that, did it? It didn't take the Israelites very long to forget these lessons. You know, right after the bitter waters, they came to Elim, they came to a little paradise, right? It was just around the corner from the bitter waters of Marah in that lesson. But, you know, things were well there, but as soon as they left Elim, they face another challenge. And almost as soon as they face another challenge, they're ready to murmur once again, rather than trusting God. It says in verse two, the whole congregation of the children of Israel murmured against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness. They murmured. You know, it says in Deuteronomy, it talks about God repeatedly warns the Israelites not to be discouraged, neither to be afraid. And these are two things that really attack us as we're going along in this way of life. Discouragement and fear. Discouragement and fear. And so, you know, of course, the contrary to those discouragement when you're discouraged, you need to be encouraged. And that's what the cross does. That's why we remember what God has done for us in the past. And rather than fear, we ought to have faith, faith in God, that what how he's taking care of us in the past. He's with us. He's fighting for us. Right. We've seen God. conquer those Egyptians right in front of our eyes. We've seen God come through, right, for us, fighting for us. We've seen his deliverance in our lives. And so there's an expectation that we should rest and trust God in all of the trials that we come to in our lives. But how quickly they forgot and they begin to murmur against Moses. They said in verse three, would to God we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt when we sat by the flesh pots. The flesh pots, they're saying the meat pots, pots filled with meat. The idea there is that, well, we had a feast back in Egypt. Again, you know, a lot of times we forget how bad it was living in sin. We forget how bad it was back in Egypt under the bondage of sin. We start, the devil deceives us. Somehow he gets us into our minds that it wasn't all that bad. That, oh, since I became a Christian, everything's been so miserable. I was happier before I became a Christian. Back in Egypt, it was so much better. You see how they paint this? They forget about the bondage. They forget about the taskmasters whipping them. They forget about the bricks without straw. They forget about the infanticide. They forget all of that. Back when we had a feast in Egypt, You see how when we look back, our memories, we tend to color things differently. We don't remember how miserable we were in our sins. We don't remember how desperate we were when we cried out to God to deliver us from our sins. It's a funny thing about the human psyche and the sin nature. Would to God that we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt. Saying, oh, that God would have just struck us down in Egypt. Really? Really? You're wishing that God had just struck you down then? Oh, that God had just struck me down back then so I wouldn't have to endure this. When we sat by the flesh pots and when we did eat bread to the full. For ye have brought us forth into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger. And here's Moses who has risked his neck following God's order to go in and stand against, naturally speaking, the most powerful man in the world to deliver Israel and to lead them out into the promised land. All of these promises still stand. God has shown them His power. He's shown them His deliverance. He's shown them His might. I mean, He has literally divided the Red Sea in half so that they could pass through and their enemies were destroyed. When you've had a deliverance like that in your life, is there any ground? To speak like this, to start murmuring and complaining. You know the word murmuring there has, it's a very strong Hebrew word. It actually has a connotation of rebellion in it. There's a rebellion. And God will say later in Deuteronomy that these are a stiff-necked people. Stiff-necked, stubborn, stiff-necked people. How many times does God have to show His power? How many times does God have to show that He is with them before they will finally trust Him? How many times? Don't they remember the miracles? Don't they remember how God made a difference between them and the Egyptians? Don't they remember how God humbled Pharaoh? Don't they remember the Red Sea? Don't they remember the Passover night? Don't they... Have we forgotten everything? And we've forgotten everything that God's done for us. And now when a challenge comes, now we're just, we're stricken with fear. And we're imagining the absolute worst. We're sure that the absolute, we're done for. This is the end of me. We're like David. Right? We're like David. So many times God delivered David out of the hand of King Saul. And you find him so late in that whole series of events. You find him so late saying, Saul's going to kill me. He's running down to the Philistines to hide from King Saul, what God has delivered him so many times. Even the most valiant, even the most courageous saints who have done great exploits for God can fall into this same kind of unbelief that these Israelites are in. Don't we see it in ourselves? So often when the challenges of life come at us, We forget our God when we face a challenging circumstance at work, when we have a situation where it seems like everything's tied up in knots, there's no way to get out of this, I'm done for. And we're just sitting there, biting our tongue, we're so afraid. We forget all the times God has delivered us. This happened to Elijah, the same man who stood there on Mount Carmel, boldly against 400 prophets of Baal, even mocking the false gods, standing up for God and calling down fire on that altar. And yet the next day, almost the next day, as soon as Jezebel threatens him, he's fleeing for his life from this woman. He's running away, fearing for his life, wishing his own death. He goes out in the middle of the wilderness. He just basically says, just kill me now, God. This is the man who stood up against all these prophets. How often do we see this in our own lives? This terrible disease we have, this terrible disease to focus and fixate on the circumstances and totally forget about our God. We see ourselves, we see ourselves. And it's interesting that they were complaining against Moses. Moses is always taking the heat. And there's actually an escalation because you learn later, you know, in chapter 16, they're murmuring and then they want to stone Moses next. They want to stone Moses. There's an escalation to this. You learn in verse eight that their complaining against Moses was actually complaining against God. Look at verse eight. Moses said, this shall be when the Lord shall give you in the evening flesh to eat and the morning bread to the full that the Lord heareth your murmurings, which you murmur against him. And what are we? Your murmurings are not against us, but against the Lord. You may be complaining against me, In this situation, you may be complaining against me, you may put all the blame on me, but I'm just following the Lord. It's the Lord who's leading us, right? The Lord's the one who commanded me to go and lead you out of Egypt. He's the one that's leading us by the cloudy pillar through the wilderness. You're not rebelling against me, you're rebelling against God. And Moses wants the people to know God hears your murmuring. God is listening. He can hear the murmuring. Certain places in like Deuteronomy, God hears the murmuring in their tents. They think in their own privacy of their own little tents that no one hears them, that God doesn't hear all their spite and all their wicked words toward Moses and toward God. God is listening. He hears all of it. All of their discussions are as if they're right before the throne of Almighty God. It's an offense to God. It's a provocation to God. He makes it very clear in Psalm 106. He makes it very clear this was a provocation, this constant complaining and murmuring, all based on unbelief. See, this murmuring and complaining has no ground to stand on except for unbelief. It's not a faith. And you might think that God would just rain down fire and brimstone on these murmurs and complainers. You might think that God would just say enough is enough with all of this, continuing to murmur against Moses and to murmur against him and not to believe his word. But you see the grace of God here. And folks, can we remember times in our life when we know our attitude toward our circumstance was abysmal? Right? If you've walked with the Lord for any amount of time, you have had circumstances come, and the way you have responded later on, you had to get on your knees and say, Lord, I did not respond to that situation, right? That was not faith. And here I am, I've been a Christian for 10, 15, 20 years, why? Why am I still responding to challenges and trials this way? And it's even more humiliating when God shows up, right? You've been worrying and biting your nails and all this stuff, and God shows up and shows his power and reminds you, I'm still here, I'm still your God, I'm still with you. Isn't that humbling? When God doesn't strike us down, He doesn't strike us down, but He shows us grace and kindness as a father. That's what He does here. Instead of raining down judgment on these complainers, God is gonna rain down bread from heaven. He's gonna supply. He's gonna show them that He is their provision. He's gonna remind them again that he is there to care for them, that he loves them. Verse four, then said the Lord unto Moses, behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you. I will rain bread from heaven. Isn't that fascinating wording? I will rain bread from heaven. You think about a wilderness, right? It's a place that's so destitute of any supply. To supply for three million people in the wilderness, it had to take a miracle. There have been some attempts by quote-unquote Bible scholars to explain this miracle of the manna in the wilderness. on a natural level. And folks, they have come up so empty. There is no natural explanation for the manna in the wilderness. It was a supernatural provision from God. It was a miraculous provision from God. And how amazing of a miracle. All the time Israel wandered through that wilderness, God supplied their daily He supplied. God was faithful. Was Israel always faithful? No, they were not. But every day, they woke up, and every day, regardless of how disobedient, murmuring and complaining, all this, God was faithful. The manna was there. God supplied a continual reminder of His faithfulness and love to them. Miracle day by day. God says, I'm going to do this for you. I'm going to give you a daily miracle. I'm going to give you a miracle every single day you wake up. You're going to have a miracle. Folks, we don't deserve the least of God's mercies. Look how amazing. You know, when the Bible talks about grace upon grace, grace heaped upon grace. In Jesus, there's grace and truth, but there's grace upon grace. God doesn't just give us grace that we don't deserve. He just keeps giving every day. His mercies are new every morning, right? Great is his faithfulness to us. Great is his faithfulness. His mercy is to the heavens, his faithfulness. He talks about it, right? Reaches to the clouds. He says, every day they're going to go out and they're going to gather this provision. He says, I will rain bread from heaven and the people shall go out and gather a certain rate every day that I may prove them or test them whether they will walk in my law or no. You notice a couple of things about this provision that God gave. Number one, there was a requirement for Israel, God's people, to participate in this. They couldn't just sit back in their tent and expect God to spoon feed them the manna, right? Now God provides the manna, but they've got to go out and they've got to gather it. They've got to go out and gather an omer of manna. It's about two quarts of manna for everyone. They've got to gather what they need for that day. There's an application for us today. You know that the Bible talks about Jesus, that he is that bread from heaven. See? Jesus is very clear in John 6. Those Israelites, they ate the manna, right? But they died. And Jesus says, I'm the living bread sent down from heaven. You eat of this bread, you'll live forever. You'll have everlasting life. He says, I am the bread of life. I'm your sustenance. He says in the same chapter, John 6, 63, he says, my words are spirit and they are life. Man, right? Man shall not live by bread alone, the physical bread, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. We live on the word of God, right? As the spirit fills us, God's word. That's our sustenance. So Jesus is the living bread. Jesus is the reality that the manna pointed towards. You know, every day, we don't just need to wake up in the morning and go out into the fields of Holy Scripture and collect our Bible facts for the day. You know what we really need every morning? We need Him. We need Jesus every day. That is not just a cliche. That's not just a nice thing to hang on your wall. I need coffee and I need Jesus. We joke about that. It's not just a cliche. We really need Jesus every day. And the exciting thing is by the Word and by the Spirit of God, we can partake of the divine nature. We can partake every single day of this feast, feasting on Christ. Jesus said, you must eat my flesh and drink my blood, otherwise you have no part of me. Not a literal cannibalism, right? He's very clear in that passage. He's talking spiritually. He's talking spiritually about taking in all that Jesus is. He says, come learn of me. That's what Jesus says. Come, learn, spend time with Jesus. You have to participate. Yes, it's available every day. God gives you the opportunity to collect together from the fields of divine grace, from the scripture, relying on the Holy Spirit to instruct you, to teach you, to build you up, to edify you, to feed your soul with what you really need. Right, which is that bread of life, spending time with Jesus, partaking of divine grace. partaking of the living truth of the Word of God that transforms you from glory to glory, that fills you with that same nature, the love of God, the divine nature, right? It fills you and transforms you, it expels the darkness, it purges out, the Bible cleanses away wickedness. It talks about that, the washing of the water of the Word, Ephesians 5. Helps you to grow spiritually, to become the man or the woman of God that you are called to be. Desire the pure milk of the word that you may grow thereby, right? The word of His grace that's able to build you up, the Bible says. All these things. You could neglect the daily provision. You could just sit in your tent and you could complain. and go hungry, even though God has surrounded you with the blessing. You just have to go and get it. You just have to go and collect it. Fill your vessels. You know, in the Lord's prayer, we call it the Lord's prayer. Some people would call it the disciples' prayer. In Matthew chapter six, one of the things we're instructed to pray, give us this day our daily bread. And that's not just talking about the natural bread. Yes, we have need for our physical bread, the food on our table. Yes, we should pray. Yes, it encompasses that. But that command is so much more than just praying for our physical bread. Did you know that this passage about the manna is actually applied to our physical needs? If you look at 2 Corinthians 9, I'll go over there real quick. 2 Corinthians 9, this is a passage dealing with finances. Sometimes it's misunderstood, misused, and abused by various prosperity gospel preachers who take verses like these out of context to teach that if you sow your material wealth, your money into the church, that you're guaranteed to get a return of so many times as much money back to your account. material wealth back to your account, right, that's abused in that way. It doesn't teach that, but it does give us some wonderful truths about God's provision and also refers back to the manna in the wilderness. If you look here at 2 Corinthians 9, and go down to, let's see, Let's go to verse 5. that the same might be ready as a matter of bounty and not as of covetousness. But this I say, he which soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly. He which soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully. There you have the reaping and the sowing principle all through the Bible. Every man according as he purposes in his heart, so let him give. It's an important principle. as you purpose in your heart. Not grudgingly. God doesn't want us to give out of constraint. Oh, I got to give, I got to put my tithe or my offering in the offering plate. Why? Because God is looking for worship. That's not worship. That's not worship. Or of necessity. For God loveth a cheerful giver. It should be with gratitude from our hearts that we want to give. We should be givers because God gave everything for us. It says, and God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that ye, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work, as it is written. And here's where it quotes back to the man in the wilderness. He hath dispersed abroad, he hath given to the poor, his righteousness remaineth forever. Now he that ministereth seed to the sower, both minister for your food and multiply your seed so in the increase, increase the fruits of your righteousness. I'm sorry, I'm getting this mixed up. Increase the fruits of your righteousness being enriched in everything to all bountifulness. Now, that's the principle I wanted to bring out. The fact that if you sow money generously, it doesn't say you're going to get money back. It says you're the fruits of righteousness, not the fruit of money. You're going to get righteousness back. You're going to be blessed spiritually. The actual quote about the man in the wilderness is in chapter eight. starting in verse 12. For at first there be a willing mind is that it is accepted according to that a man hath and not according to what he hath not. You give according to what you have, not according to what you don't have. out of your heart, out of your generosity. For I mean not that the other men be eased, and ye be burdened, but by inequality, that now at this time your abundance may be a supply for their want, that their abundance also may be a supply for your want, that there may be inequality. Here it is, as it is written, he that hath gathered much hath nothing over, and he that hath gathered little hath no lack. And the point is there that God wants the people to be generous and giving to one another so there should be an equality. There shouldn't be one person hoarding up all of their resources and another doesn't have enough, right? And the whole idea here is that God supplies through these chapters. You see that God is able to supply both, yes, the physical need, but also the spiritual need. And a lot of times even through God's people. And it quotes back to that manna in the wilderness. There's a lot in that passage about not hoarding the manna. Because a lot of times hoarding comes from a lack of trust in God. That's why you save up. There was a very clear principle here that God wanted the people to live by faith and trust in him on a day-by-day basis. And they weren't to gather more than the Omer per day, unless it was on the day before the Sabbath. They were to gather twice as much because of the rest the next day. But normally they were to gather just enough for that day and to live by faith. And so you see in the principles here, what I'm talking about is that in our lives, God teaches us that we have provision from him And it's not like God just loads it on us, or we're to just hoard it up. We're to live by faith. We're to live by trust. We're not to try to secure everything for the rest of our days. We're to be generous. We're to give to others. We're to give to those in need. Because what happens is we're so caught up in trying to secure for ourselves, our provision for ourselves to make sure we're safe and we got what we need, that our brothers and sisters are neglected. They don't have their needs. When you trust in God for his provision, guess what you're free to do? When you trust in God for your daily needs, bread, when you trust in God that he's going to give you your bread tomorrow and the day after that, guess what you're freed up to do now? You're free to give. You're free to be generous. You're free to love others and give and extend generosity to others so that there's no lack, so that there's equality. This is how it's operated in the church. We are to give of our surplus and our extra to those who are in need. That's God's plan. And so everybody, you know, God told them every day they're to go out and they're to gather this bread from heaven, okay? And I think this happens, you know, on a natural level. Yes, God supplies the physical. There's definitely an application of this passage to our physical needs, our physical bread. But also to our spiritual bread. Right. When it's when it says in Matthew six, give us this day our daily bread. I believe also we should be praying every day in expectation. Lord, when I go to feast on the word of God, the bread of the living word of God. Right. Feed me. You promised to feed your sheep. Feed me today, Lord. Give me a good word. Open my eyes that I may behold wondrous things out of your law this morning or this day as I'm in the scriptures. And you know, even that provision spiritually is to be used to bless others. We could also hoard up a bunch of scriptures and never use it. We could hoard up a bunch of scriptures that God gives us and be filled with all kinds of Bible knowledge. We could have bread to the full. And yet there's people out there starving that don't even know the basics of the gospel. And so grace is always meant to be used. The provision of God is always meant to be used, not to just hoard, but also to give to others. There is a famine, if you haven't noticed, of the Word of God all around Brooklyn, all around Bay Ridge, all around the United States, there's a famine of the Word of God. And we are not just as sit happy with our feast of Bible knowledge in our churches while others are perishing without the saving truth of the gospel. We are to go out and share. And also we're to use the grace God gives us, the provisions of grace God gives us to meet one another's needs. We don't realize sometimes how much we can help someone with an encouraging word. You know, someone that's coming to church on Sunday here. They could be miserable in their sins and just a word, you know, that could make the difference between life and death. There's more than a few times where people have been in the church one Sunday and they're gone the next. And nobody knew that person was in such dire straits in their soul. And just a kind word, just a compassionate word, just an encouraging word from scripture, just, you know, just a text or a phone call, just reaching out can change everything. When we begin not just to feast for ourselves, but we begin to share out of that provision that God's given us. Amen. It says in verse six, Moses and Aaron said unto the children of Israel, I'd even you shall know that the Lord has brought you out from the land of Egypt. And in the morning, then you shall see the glory of the Lord for he here with your murmurings against the Lord. And what are we that you murmur against us? Now I want to go down. I want to go down here to. Verse 14, because I can't go into everything here, but verse 14, when the dew that lay was gone up, behold, upon the face of the wilderness there lay a small round thing, as small as the hoarfrost on the ground. And when the children of Israel saw it, they said one to another, it is manna. Actually, manna literally means what is it? It's the man who in the Hebrew, I mean, what is it? For they wist not what it was. And Moses said, this is the bread which the Lord hath given you to eat. This is the thing that the Lord hath commanded. Gather of it every man according to his eating, and Omer for every man according to the number of your persons. Take ye every man for them which are in his tents. And the children of Israel did so and gathered some more and some less. So, and then it goes into the part we quoted. We have to remember, if we go back to John 6, we have to remember the reality of what this is pointing towards. The heavenly manna, the pot of manna that was kept for a memorial in the Ark of the Covenant. There were some Jews that came to Jesus and they were desiring just earthly things. They were just desiring for their bellies to be filled. And you know, there's a lot of people who will come to Jesus just for physical blessings, just to have their bellies filled, but they don't have any concern for spiritual things. You can see it a lot in our prayers. Our prayers tell a lot about what kind of provision we're looking for in our lives. Think about our prayers for a minute. If our prayers are about our job situation and how we're going to get our next meal. And these are legitimate prayers, our needs, family, friendships, relationships. But if there's nothing in our prayers to do with sanctification, if there's nothing in our prayers to do with holiness, of being conformed to the image of Christ, of walking in love more, of conquering sin, of these kind of things, that's a reflection on our hearts that we may just be thinking of God as a means to just have a better quality of life here on earth. And there were many disciples, in fact, many of them stopped following Jesus after this passage because He confronted this worldliness, this fleshly mentality. He confronted those who sought Him. Yes, they did seek Him, as many seek Him today, but they do not seek Him for spiritual life. I mean, this is what the prosperity gospel appeals to. The prosperity preachers, they are promising people that you can have your best life now. In fact, I believe that's a title of a book by, who is it? Joel Osteen, Your Best Life Now. And if you work out their theology, what they really mean by this is you're gonna have material wealth, you're gonna have an abundance of food and provision, earthly provision and all these things guaranteed to you by faith. And Jesus says here to these who are just seeking for material things in verse 26, verily, verily, I say unto you, you seek me, you seek me, not because you saw the miracles, but because you did eat of the loaves and were filled. And you're seeking me all because of fleshly reasons. Labor not for the meat, labor not for the food which perisheth, But for that food, which endures unto everlasting life, which the Son of Man shall give unto you, for him hath God the Father sealed. He's telling us again, Jesus is always going after the heart, and he's always turning people toward what really matters, what's the most important. Yes, God is our source of provision for our meals. Yes, God is our source of our clothing and everything good we have in this physical world. Yes, it all comes from God. And yes, we can pray for those things. But Jesus is setting the priority here on what is spiritual. And I'm gonna hold my place and just compare real quick what he said in Matthew 6. Jesus says in Matthew 6, Lay not up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust oft corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal. But lay up for yourselves treasure in heaven, where neither moth nor rust oft corrupt, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. And he goes on to say, take no thought for your life, what you shall eat or what you shall drink, nor yet for your body what you shall put on. Is not the life more than food and the body more than clothing? Behold the fowls of the air, for they sow not, neither do they reap, neither gather in barns, yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they? Which of you, by taking thought, can add one cubit unto his stature? And why take ye thought for raiment, or clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow. They toil not, neither do they spin. And yet I say unto you, that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Wherefore, if God so clothed the grass of the field, which today is and tomorrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe ye, O ye of little faith? Therefore, take no thought, saying, What shall we eat, or what shall we drink, or wherewith shall we be clothed? For after all these things did the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knoweth ye have need of all these things. He knows you need the natural things, the natural food. He knows you need these things. but seek ye first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. Jesus says to labor not for the food which perishes. We can get so preoccupied with material things and fleshly things, and totally neglect the state of our souls, our spiritual walk. Labor for that food, the meat, the food that endureth unto everlasting life, which the Son of Man shall give unto you. And then he says, going on, the Israelites in verse 31, the Jews, they say, our fathers did eat manna in the desert. As it is written, he gave them bread from heaven to eat. They're quoting the verse we just read. Our fathers, they ate bread from heaven. Jesus said, verily, verily, I say unto you, Moses gave you not that bread from heaven, but my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he which cometh down from heaven and giveth life unto the world. They still didn't get it. In verse 34, they said, Lord, evermore give us this bread. They just want breakfast. And some people, they really never get it. They never get it. They never get it. Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life. He that cometh to me shall never hunger, and he that believeth on me shall never thirst. What do you mean, come to you, Jesus? What do you mean? I can't see you. You're seated on the throne in heaven. What do you mean? What do you mean, come? It's not a physical approaching here. It's not like I'm coming, I'm walking over from here to there. It is spiritual drawing nigh unto God. The Bible says, draw nigh unto God and he will draw nigh unto you. Come to me, Jesus says. How? How do I come to Jesus? Come with your heart. Come down to him in prayer. Come. Call upon the name of the Lord. Call upon him. Call upon him for your food, the food for your soul, the spiritual food. He says, come to me. He says there, I said unto you that you also have seen me, and believe not. Some of them didn't have faith. All that the Father giveth me shall come to me, and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out. Look down at verse 40, and this is the will of him that sent me, that everyone which seeth the Son and believeth on him may have everlasting life, and I will raise him up at the last day. And the Jews then murmured, kind of like their forefathers, because he said, I am the bread which came down from heaven. And he says in verse 44, or 43, murmur not among yourselves. No man can come to me except the Father, which hath sent me draw him, and I will raise him up in the last day. It is written in the prophets, and they shall be all taught of God. Every man, therefore, that hath heard and hath learned of the Father cometh to me, not that any man hath seen the Father, save he which is of God. He has seen the Father. Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that believeth on me hath everlasting life. I am that bread of life. I am that bread. And it's not just something. Yes, it's initial. Yes, if you're lost in your sins, you need Jesus. You need the bread of life because there's no life outside of Jesus. There's no only death outside of Jesus. This world is a famine outside of Jesus. If he didn't come down, think about it. If he didn't come down, there would be no life. There would be no spiritual life. We'd all be dead in trespasses and sins. But because of His sacrifice on the cross, because He came down to give His flesh for the life of the world, because God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, because He took on the cross the penalty, the sin, He took the sin payment that we deserve, justly deserve, very justly deserve, Not some kind of an evil thing for people to go to hell. It's a just thing. It's deserved. People don't get that today. It's what we deserve. He took that penalty for us on the cross. Freely, of his own accord, said, no man lays my... No, no man takes my life from me. I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down I have power to take it up in that he put away sin and brought in everlasting righteousness eternal life He's brought life and immortality to life through the gospel. The Bible says he's brought he's brought He's opened up the doors of everlasting life. And all you have to do is eat that bread. Partake of that bread. Jesus, the bread of life. How? By faith you become a partaker of the gospel of Jesus Christ. By union with Christ. Union with Christ. Join to Him by trusting in His person and His work. Trusting in Him. He is who He says He is. Believing in Him. Right? Isn't that what Jesus says all through John 6? Some of you don't believe. Some of them, they were blinded in their sins. They're still chasing after their bellies. Right? Their God is their belly. Their glory is their shame. All they care about is earthly things. They're earthly minded. They don't see their sins. They don't see the Savior and He's standing right in front of them. The bread from heaven. The manna from heaven for their life. So many they don't see. They don't see. But we see Jesus. By faith you partake of that living bread. And anyone who eats of this bread, We'll live forever. Live forever. Immortality forever. Now that's not what we deserve. That is not what we deserve. That is grace. And that begins a provision, a provision not only of, you know, of a settled state before God of righteousness that can't be taken away from you. Jesus said in that very passage we just read, anybody who comes to Him, I will no wise cast out. You come to Jesus Christ, you pass from death to life. You're not in Egypt anymore, you've been delivered. And with that deliverance comes a daily promise of God to meet your needs. Yes, the physical needs. But don't focus on the physical needs first. Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. Seek the spiritual bread. Every day it's supposed to be feasting on Jesus Christ through His word. Every single day we need Jesus. There were some Israelites, they would try to stock up the manna. We try to live off yesterday's manna. We can't live off yesterday's manna. We can't live off yesterday's bread. We can't live off five years ago's devotionals and time in the Word. We need today. We need Jesus today. We need Him today. We need Him tomorrow morning. We need Him every day. Give us this day our daily bread. We need to say every morning, give me Jesus or I die. Give me Jesus this morning or I die. Give me Jesus this morning or I perish today. Give me Jesus or I'll waste away in my sins. Give me Jesus or I'll go back to walking in the flesh and fulfilling my lust today. Give me Jesus today. That's got to be our heart. That's got to be our cry. How desperate would we be if we woke up, we have no food in the house, nothing to eat. If we were in a famine and God gave us cleanness of teeth, wouldn't we fret, oh no, there's no food to eat, I'm so hungry, I need to eat. How can we go without spiritual food? How can we go a day without feeding on Jesus Christ and feeding on the word? We can't. We're deceiving ourselves. If we think we can live a day without this bread, we need the bread every day. Yes, we have a settled state. Yes, once you partake of the bread, right, of salvation, I'm talking about justification now. Yes, we pass from death. Praise the Lord, we're justified. But every single day, we need that spiritual life. Continually, we need that spiritual life. Father in heaven, thank you, Lord, for this time. to go into your word, Lord. Talk about provision. Lord, there's many aspects to talk about. We know, Lord, you meet our needs, our physical needs, maybe not all of our felt needs or our wants, but our physical needs, you meet them so graciously every single day. Thank you, thank you, Lord. I pray, Lord, that we will be compelled to share, to be generous with the grace, the physical things and the spiritual things you've given us, Lord, not to take your grace in vain, We thank you, Lord, for the provision. And Lord, I pray, Father, that, yes, we be settled as partakers of the bread of life, that we have life in Jesus, that we are forgiven, that we passed out of that state of death, that horrible place of death. Lord, I praise you for that. We have eternal life in Christ Jesus, but I pray, Lord, that we would not be deceived to neglect every day our sustenance. We need that bread. We need the bread of life every single day. Lord, we need to live on Christ every day. And You provide, Lord. You're faithful every day. You're faithful. Lord, You've given us Your Word. You've given us, Lord, the manna from heaven. We just need to appropriate it, Lord. Appropriate it. Lord, I pray, Father, that each and every one of us would see our desperate need of that grace from the Word of God every single day. In Jesus' name, Amen. All right.