Read Exodus 16:1-36.

Introduction⤒🔗

Ruth was at the end of her endurance. She was so hungry that going to sleep was a nightmare. She would dream of chocolate bars. Sometimes she would reach for them, but they were always just beyond her grasp. She was tired. She was tired of abuse and tired of hunger. Just too tired to go on.

It was 1933, the middle of the Great Depression. She had four young boys and a baby girl. Her husband, Harry, had a job, but his entire paycheck went to quench his thirst for alcohol.

Ruth was planning to commit suicide: she would lock herself into the kitchen, turn on the burners of the gas stove, lie down on the floor, and wait for death to take her. Ruth took her baby daughter to the bedroom and laid her in her crib; then she dragged herself back to the kitchen.

There on the kitchen table lay one of the magazines her eldest son had brought home from a neighbor. The title of one of the articles caught Ruth’s eye, it contained the word “believing” and it quoted a Bible verse from the gospel: “Therefore I say to you, ‘Whatever things you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received them, and you shall have them’” (Mk. 11:24).

The article intrigued Ruth. She sat down and read it. The article seemed to be saying that you can trust God to supply your needs; all you need to do is ask Him. Ruth was skeptical. It seemed impossible that all she had to do was pray, “Lord, my children are hungry, will You please feed them?” and then act as if He would.

Skeptical though she was, Ruth nevertheless figured, “What have I got to lose?” She prayed, “God, will You please send some food for the children’s supper? Thank You.” Then she set the table for supper. Suddenly, she felt sick. Was she building false hopes for something she had no assurance would be provided? Was it foolish and would she be disappointed in trusting God to meet her needs? Could He and would He provide bread?

Ruth’s doubts were dispelled and her questions were answered by a knock at the front door. It was the old man who just recently moved into the shack across the street. He explained that he had just come from his daughter’s house, and her husband, who ran a butcher shop, had given him some extra pieces of meat. The old man now offered Ruth a bundle of meaty beef bones, a beef heart, and a package of fresh liver.

Although their little garden looked bare, when Ruth sent one of the children to inspect it, he came back with a few onions. Then there was a knock at the back door. Ruth’s nephew arrived with a batch of biscuits his mother sent over, she also included some cinnamon buns.

This is Ruth’s testimony:

I thank God that He heard my prayer uttered from the depths of despair that August afternoon. Never again did I feel completely alone. Now at age 80, I can honestly say that God has not failed me once. Jesus has walked with me throughout the years since the day that I dared to believe.¹

In moments of unbelief we, like Old Testament Israel, complain against the LORD and doubt His fatherly concern. But let us learn a lesson from Ruth’s experience, and from the experience of Old Testament Israel: Because the LORD is our God, we can trust Him to meet our needs.

Place Your Confidence in the LORD, and Never Regret Your “Exodus”←⤒🔗

When the children of Israel departed from Elim, (the place of palm trees and springs of water), the LORD led them into the wilderness of Sin. The wilderness of Sin is a barren, desolate place. As the people use up the last of their supplies, they anticipate death by starvation out there in that desolate wilderness.

Confronted with this problem, observe their reaction:

²The whole congregation of the children of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness. ³The children of Israel said to them, We wish that we had died by the LORD’s hand in the land of Egypt, when we sat around the pots of meat, when we ate bread and were full. You have brought us into this wilderness in order to kill this whole assembly with hunger! vs. 2-3

First, they murmur against Moses, the man who is the representative of the LORD (vs. 2). We may well ask ourselves, “How many times do I murmur against God because He does not fulfill my expectations? or because He does not live up to the caricature I have envisioned of what He should be and what He should do?”

Second, the Israelites idealize their past; they long for “the good old days” when they were slaves in Egypt (vs. 3). But they have a selective memory: they exaggerate whatever benefits they may have had—did they really sit around pots of meat and eat all the food they wanted, as they claim? Also, they neglect to remember their bondage and oppression. By way of example, we may be tempted at times to protest, “Before I came to Christ I fit in with the crowd, now I feel like an outsider. At that time I didn’t worry about how I lived, now I struggle with my lifestyle, trying to resist temptation and lead a godly life. Back then God left me alone, now He is always stretching me and changing me! I miss those ‘good old days!” But were they really “good old days?”

Third, they completely lose sight of God’s promises, as recorded in Exodus 3:8, “I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land to a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey.” They conclude that if redemption means starving to death in a barren wilderness, they would rather be damned than be saved: “We wish that we had died by the LORD’s hand in the land of Egypt” (vs. 3); i.e. they say they wish they had met the same fate as the Egyptians!

Because of where God had led them, because of what He had brought into their lives, these people came to regret their Exodus. But thanks be to God that in His covenant faithfulness He did not give them their desire. On the contrary, He miraculously provided for them and sustained them until the day He brought His people into the Promised Land of Canaan. Consider Exodus 16:35, “The children of Israel ate the manna for forty years, until they came to a land that was settled; they ate the manna until they came to the border of the land of Canaan.”

Because the LORD is your God, never regret your “Exodus” from sin and from the bondage of the devil. Do not lose sight of the future to which God calls you as a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ: “I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future” (Jer. 29:11).

Do not lose sight of God’s good purpose with regard to all things that He sees fit to bring into your life:

²⁸...we know that all things work together for good for those who love God, those who have been called according to his purpose; ²⁹for those whom God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, so that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.

³⁰And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified. Rom. 8:28-30

Do not lose sight of God’s fatherly love and commitment to you, expressed by His acts of discipline:

⁵You have forgotten that word of encouragement that addresses you as sons: My son, do not make light of the Lord’s discipline, and do not lose heart when he rebukes you, ^6abecause the Lord disciplines those he loves... ¹¹No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it. Heb. 12:5-6a, 11

Place Your Confidence in the LORD, Being Assured that He Will Provide Your “Daily Bread”←⤒🔗

It is the LORD who has led the people of Israel into this barren wilderness of Sin, they are His people, and He assumes the responsibility for their care. The LORD now reveals to Moses: “I will rain bread down from heaven for you” (v. 4). The LORD will open up the storehouses of heaven and from His own unlimited resources will provide for the need of His people. Note how the Apostle Paul encourages the Philippian Christians with the assurance of the heavenly Father’s faithful care for His children in Christ: “My God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 4:19).

But the LORD provides this divine manna in such a way as to teach His people to trust Him for their “daily bread.” While encamped in the wilderness of Sin, the people are instructed to gather a day’s portion every day (vs. 4). When they seek to store some up for use the next day, contrary to Moses’ instruction, they find that it has bred worms and spoiled (vs. 19-20). This should bring to mind the instructions our Lord Jesus gives concerning the way in which we are to pray: “Give us this day our daily bread” (Matt. 6:11).

The answer as to why the LORD so instructs us to pray is to be found in such a passage as Proverbs 30:8-9,

⁸...give me neither poverty nor riches, feed me with the food that is my necessary portion. ⁹Otherwise, if I have too much, I may disown you and say, ‘Who is the LORD?’ Or I may become poor and steal, and by so doing dishonor the name of my God.

The Hebrew text of Proverbs 30:8c literally speaks of “the bread appointed [ יקִּ חֻ] for me.” As the O.T. commentator, C.F. Keil, observes, this is referring to “the bread...determined for me according to the divine plan.”² The Lord Jesus informs us that what is divinely intended for us is “our daily bread;"intended to impress upon us our dependence upon the LORD our God and cause us to exercise that dependence on a daily basis.

We must also take note of Deuteronomy 8:11-14,

¹¹Be careful that you do not forget the LORD your God, failing to observe his commandments, his laws and his decrees that I am giving you this day. ¹²Be careful for fear that, when you eat and are satisfies, when you build fined houses and settle down, ¹³and when your herds and flocks grow large and your silver and gold increase and all you have is multiplied, ¹⁴then your heart becomes proud and you forget the LORD your God.

There seems to be the general spiritual principle that God’s people cannot handle the fullness of the LORD’s blessing in this present life, and it is by His grace that He does not give that blessing in full measure at this present time.

Because the LORD is your God, be confident that He will provide your “daily bread.” Consider the counsel of the Psalmist: “Fear the LORD, you his saints, for those who fear him lack nothing. ¹⁰The lions may grow weak and hungry, but those who seek the LORD lack no good thing” (Psl. 34:9-10).

Place Your Confidence in the LORD, and Acknowledge His Divine Resources←⤒🔗

Israel’s murmuring is a slander against the LORD, against His goodness, His faithfulness, His ability, and His very character; therefore, the LORD takes personal offense at Israel’s sinful reaction to their present plight.

To vindicate His great Name, the LORD causes His glory to appear in the cloud (vs. 10) and promises to supply His people not only with bread, but also with an abundance of meat. He instructs Moses to inform the people: “At twilight, you will eat meat; and in the morning, you will be filled with bread. Then you will know that I am the LORD your God” (vs. 12). In the spring, quail fly northward in immense flocks from the interior of Africa. The LORD providentially caused such a flight of quail to fall into the camp of the Israelites, providing them with a miraculous abundance of meat.³

Besides the one-time gift of quail, the LORD supplied a daily portion of manna, which He continued to faithfully provide throughout the forty years of Israel’s wilderness journey. This divine manna may not have been supplied for the people every single day for forty years, but only on those occasions when no other provisions were available to them. On many occasions their flocks and herds could have provided them with dairy and meat products, as Exodus 12:38 indicates, “Many other people went up with them [out of Egypt], as well as large droves of livestock, both flocks and herds.” Also, there were various areas of the wilderness where the people could engage in a limited form of agriculture.

Though He may have supplied the manna every single day, it appears that the LORD did so only in those places and at those times when there were no other natural resources available; thereby demonstrating to His people that they could always rely upon the LORD to supply their needs from His divine resources. Consider the way the Lord Jesus refers to this gracious provision in His encounter with the devil:

¹Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. ²After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. ³The tempter came to him and said, 'If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.' ⁴Jesus answered, 'It is written: Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.' Matt. 4:1-4

The setting in which Jesus’ temptations took place is one in which the Lord Jesus had a genuine human need; He was starving in the wilderness. Coming to the Lord in His time of human need, the devil suggests that Jesus should take it upon Himself to meet His need, rather than looking to God. After all, God is the One who brought Him into this wilderness: “Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness” (Matt. 4:1). The tempter’s suggestion is that Jesus should take matters into His own hands, even if it means disobeying God’s commandments.

How does Jesus reply? He declares, “It is written: Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.” Jesus is quoting Deuteronomy 8:3, a passage that alludes to the LORD’s miraculous provision of manna in the wilderness. Jesus is remembering and trusting in the fact that His heavenly Father did not abandon His people; on the contrary, He met their need in a totally unexpected way from His unlimited and divine resources. In distinction to Old Testament Israel, who doubted the LORD’s goodness and ability, the Lord Jesus placed His trust and confidence in His heavenly Father to meet His legitimate need.

Because the LORD is your God, you may be confident of His divine resources. Note again, Philippians 4:19, “My God will meet all your needs according to his glorious riches in Christ Jesus.”

Conclusion←⤒🔗

In times of unbelief we, like Old Testament Israel, tend to complain against the LORD and question His fatherly concern. In a spirit of unbelief, we, like Israel, skeptically ask the question, “Can he provide bread?” (Psl. 78:20)

Ruth, the lady referred to in the Introduction, can give us the answer to that question; from her own personal experience she knows the answer to be “Yes!” As she testifies, “Now, at age 80, I can honestly say that God has not failed me once. Jesus has walked with me throughout the years, since the day that I dared to believe.”

Let us learn a lesson from Ruth, the very lesson with which we are confronted in this passage of Scripture: Because the LORD is our God, we can trust Him to meet our every need. As Christians, let us place our confidence in the LORD our God on a daily basis and in a practical way.

Discussion Questions←⤒🔗

1. What situation has caused the people of Israel to grumble? See Ex. 16:2-3 What drastic wish do they express? Compare their wish with the counsel Job’s wife gives him. See Job 2:9 Have you ever felt like Israel, or like Job’s wife? But how does Job respond to such a suggestion? See Job 2:10.

²The whole congregation of the children of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness. ³The children of Israel said to them, 'We wish that we had died by the LORD’s hand in the land of Egypt, when we sat around the pots of meat, when we ate bread and were full. You have brought us into this wilderness in order to kill this whole assembly with hunger!' Ex. 16:2-3

⁸So he took a potsherd with which to scrape himself as he sat among the ashes. ⁹Then his wife said to him, Are you still maintaining your integrity? Renounce God and die! ¹⁰But he said to her, You are speaking like one of the foolish women. Shall we only accept good from the hand of God, and shall we not accept calamity? In all this Job did not sin with his lips. Job 2:8-10

2. To whom did the people of Israel voice their complaint? See Ex. 16:2 But with what fact does Moses confront the people in Exodus 16:7b, 8b? When we find ourselves expressing a grumbling attitude, do we realize that we are actually grumbling against the LORD? Would the clear knowledge of that fact temper our attitude, humble us, and bring us to repentance? Note Job 40:1-4.

⁷...in the morning, you shall see the glory of the LORD, for he has heard your grumbling against him. Who are we, that you grumble against us? ⁸And Moses said, You will know that it is the LORD when he gives you meat to eat in the evening and all the bread you want in the morning; for the LORD has heard your grumbling that is actually grumbling against him. Who are we? Your grumbling is not against us, but against the LORD! Ex. 16:7-8

¹...the LORD inquired of Job: ²Shall the one who raises frivolous objections contend with the Almighty? Let him who would instruct God [now] give an answer. ³Then Job answered the LORD by saying, ⁴I am insignificant, how can I answer you? I put my hand over my mouth. Job 40:1­-4

3. What does the LORD promise to do for His people? See Ex. 16:4 How much of this bread were the people instructed to gather? How does the LORD’s instruction to Israel compare with the way in which our Lord Jesus instructs us to pray? See Matt. 6:11 What is the purpose of this instruction? Note Prov. 30:8b-9.

⁴Then the LORD said to Moses, Look; I will rain bread down from heaven for you; and the people shall go out and gather a day’s portion every day, so that I may test them, to know whether or not they will walk in accordance with my law. Ex. 16:4

⁹Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be your name...¹¹Give us this day our daily bread.... Matt. 6:9, 11

^8b...Give me neither poverty nor riches—feed me with the food you prescribe for me; ⁹lest I be full and deny you, and say, “Who is the LORD?” Or lest I be poor and steal, and profane the name of my God. Prov. 30:8b-9

4. Why did the LORD provide a double portion on the sixth day? See Ex. 16:22-23a Do you honor the LORD by observing the LORD’s day as a special day of worship and rest?

²²On the sixth day they gathered twice as much bread—two omer’s worth for each person—and the leaders of the congregation came and reported this to Moses. ²³He said to them, This is what the LORD has said: Tomorrow is a solemn rest, a holy Sabbath, dedicated to the LORD. So bake what you wish to bake and boil what you wish to boil. Save whatever is left over and keep it until the morning. Ex. 16:22-23

5. What are we told in Exodus 16:35? What does this tell us about the LORD’s faithfulness? See Psl. 23:1 Have you experienced the LORD’s faithfulness in your life? Have you acknowledged Him to be your Shepherd, and as such, are you following Him? Note An. 10:27-28.

³⁵The children of Israel ate the manna for forty years, until they came to a land that was settled; they ate the manna until they came to the border of the land of Canaan. Ex. 16:35

¹The LORD is my Shepherd; I shall not want. Psl. 23:1

²⁷My sheep respond to my voice; I know them and they follow me. ²⁸I give them eternal life; they shall never perish, and no one shall snatch them out of my hand. An. 10:27-28