CHRIST AS AVAILABLE TO BELIEVERS IN THE WILDERNESS JOURNEY

A. Martin

Exodus 16: 13–16, 31–36; Numbers 17: 1–11; 19: 1–9

I was thinking for this occasion of the availability of the Lord Jesus in the wilderness pathway. It may be that we are not all yet on the wilderness pathway. The Lord Jesus is available anyway, we know that. The children of Israel came into the wilderness by a certain process. They were in Egypt and they were in bondage. They felt it and their cry went up to Jehovah, so much so that Jehovah said, “their cry I have heard ... I am come down to deliver them”, Exodus 3: 7, 8. Think of God as coming down in love. He had come down before in Genesis. The first time in scripture when it says God came down was at Babel when man was building up; God came down to see what man was doing and He confounded it. The second time He came down because the cry of Sodom had gone up. He saw man in his degradation and God came down in judgment there. But then another cry went up and it was the cry of His people in bondage and He came down to deliver them. Wonderful grace! What a God we have to do with.

I suppose we are all familiar with how He delivered them. They had to take a lamb and bring it into the house, and that lamb had to stay in that house for four days; think of that, a lamb in the house for four days. A lamb does not belong in a house, it is not a natural environment for it, but it was there for four days. It speaks typically of how the Lord Jesus came from glory where He belonged; He came into the very world that He had created and dwelt there among men. What a wonderful thing! Think of that lamb in the house for that period of four days, and you know the reason why it came into the house. It came in in order that it should die.

The lamb came into the house and after four days it was slain, and the blood was taken and put on the doorposts and on the lintel. God’s claims were met in respect of sin, and the destroying angel looked upon that blood and did not visit that house with judgment. Being under the shelter of the blood of Christ is a wonderful thing which you may have known. If you have not had such an experience, I urge you this very day to get into the presence of the Lord, to know that apart from the work of Jesus and the shedding of His precious blood there is nothing for you but death and the wrath and the judgment of God. There is no outlook for you but that, apart from the faith that you have in the blood of Jesus, and the light that that brings in your soul. But for the believer, God does not look on you and all your works and all your terrible history. He looks upon the blood and says, “when I see the blood, I will pass over you”, Exodus 12: 13. That was the first stage in their history. Let no one in this room go to bed tonight without that assurance in their soul, because if you have not faith in the blood of Jesus your future is bleak indeed. What hope do you have? Faith in the Lord Jesus, in His finished work and in His precious blood, is the answer to it all.

But then they had to come out of Egypt, and they had to come out by way of the Red Sea. There they were a poor people, but nevertheless they were on the move and they were leaving that world of bondage of sin behind them. The Red Sea was before them and the armies of Pharaoh were behind them. What could they do? What seemed certain to them was that death was before them; whichever way they turned, they faced death. This is what the Red Sea tells us, that the Lord Jesus has been into death, “Jehovah made the sea go back by a strong east wind all the night, and made the sea dry land, and the waters were divided”, Exodus 14: 21.

Think of the One who experienced that strong east wind! Think of all that Jesus went through in that night. Think of what He endured from the hand of God, and how He went into death itself and, in doing so, made a way through. So that what appeared to the children of Israel to be the end of everything became the route into blessing, it became a way through. What a God we have to do with! One who can make a way out; He makes a way out through death.

I had not intended to say so much about a way out of Egypt, but what I wanted to speak of is how the Lord Jesus is constantly available to us in the wilderness. They came through the Red Sea and now, according to God’s ways with the leading of the cloud, they needed to proceed into the land of God’s purpose. But they needed sustaining and the children of Israel felt that. They cried to Moses in unbelief. We need not cry out in unbelief because circumstances look impossible. Cry out by all means but not in unbelief. We have One, beloved, who can make a way through, who can provide for every circumstance. Young believer, you will prove that there is One who can provide for every circumstance of life, and prove what He Himself can be as He does so. Well, the children of Israel felt the need of food, and they cried out and said, We want flesh. They had been used to a certain type of food in Egypt; they spoke about sitting by the flesh-pots. What self-indulgence is that—sitting by the flesh-pots! God says, I have a different kind of food for you I want you to feed on the One whom I have before Me, the One whom I feed upon. “And it came to pass in the evening, that quails came up, and covered the camp”. They would have understood that this was the flesh they had asked for.

God said, I will give you a taste of that and then I will give you something to compare with it.

“And when the dew that lay round it was gone up, behold, on the face of the wilderness there was something fine, granular, fine as hoar-frost, on the ground. And the children of Israel saw it, and said one to another. What is it?” They had never seen anything like it before, and there it was upon the wilderness. It had come in, conveyed on the dew, in wonderful grace. There it was upon the wilderness; it had into changed the shape of the wilderness. It had come into the wilderness as it was and covered the face of it, all around the camp. And they said, “What is it?” You remember how they said of Jesus when He was here, “as to this man, we know not whence he is”, John 9: 29. They said that because they did not have the secret. The Jews at that time did not understand who He was. I love to think of the children of Israel eating this food every day for forty years. It says, “And the house of Israel called its name Manna”. The word ‘manna’ means. What is it?

The father, the householder, had to go out every morning, he left the tent early, and doubtless he would say, I am going out to collect the manna. How their appreciation should have grown day by day as they tasted it. The manna is described in the scripture three times, and every time the description is increased. We have two descriptions here in Exodus 16 and there is another description in Numbers. The description increases as if the Holy Spirit would say to believers who appreciate it. What is it? Is there anything like it? Is there not enough to fill the soul? You say, Well I had the manna yesterday, what am I going to have today? A fresh touch of the manna and you taste it again, and you say, What is it? There is nothing like it! it is not like the food we tasted in Egypt, that would have brought me a little pleasure for a time and left me wondering what I was going to do next. No, nothing like that, the manna is full of satisfying grace, full of a wonderful sweetness. The description here speaks of its sweetness but first it speaks of the character, “granular, fine as hoar-frost”. Where do you find these qualities? Think of the fineness that was seen in the life of Jesus, the total consistency that was seen in that perfect life, never anything that was out of accord with the will of the Father.

The manna came from heaven, it came down from above. The Lord Jesus came down from above, “I am from above”, He says (John 8: 23). Think of the perfection of that life; there was no fault to be found in Him. No one could find anything inconsistent. They could never take hold of something He said one day and put it against something He said another. There was never anything inconsistent with Him. They could never take His words and put them against His actions; there was total consistency all in relation to the will of His Father. Think of that perfect life of Jesus—“What is it?” How God treasured that life!

The record we have in the gospels is of One who devoted His whole life to the will of God, serving as that will demanded; serving men who were not fine, men who were corrupt, men who were tainted by sin, men who were ungrateful, who had themselves as their objects.

There was One here, beloved, in the perfection of manhood, who had God as His object, and was here to shed amongst men the light and the love of God, and more than that, to display here on earth everything that God had ever looked for in a Man, to display every feature of perfection and excellence that God had sought.

No wonder God could say, “Thou art my beloved Son, in thee I have found my delight”, Luke 3: 22. How wonderful to think of God expressing those feelings about the life of Jesus in an unqualified way. There was never a moment when He did not find His delight in Him. As we said in the reading, when Jesus was here upon earth God was justified in taking up man because every thought of God in relation to man was displayed in Him. There was perfect communion, perfect grace, perfect consistency with everything that God had in mind, right from the outset when Adam was created. It has all been taken up and it is all displayed in one glorious holy Man who was here upon this earth untainted by all that was around.

He came into this scene. He was found amongst men, the scriptures would have us to believe that He may physically have been indistinguishable from other men, although the one who said that was the one who should have known Him more than any. I find it very affecting, that when they came to take Him, it was not the priest or the Pharisees who said, How shall we mark Him out? It was one of the twelve who said that you will need to know which one He is. O beloved, it was one who had been in His company who did not appreciate the distinctiveness of the One who was there who said that you will need someone to mark Him out. What terrible darkness was in the heart of that man. But there was One who was distinctive and perfect in every respect upon this earth. He was treading the pathway of the will of God. Beloved, are we still saying, as we feed upon the life of Jesus,

“What is it?”? You go to work, you spend your time among men, you come back in the evening, you go to the meetings and you get a touch from the Spirit of God in your soul, and you say, What is it? It is that life, the life of Jesus.

Well, God would never have them forget that, He said, “Fill an omer of it to be kept for your generations; that they may see the bread that I gave you to eat in the wilderness”. Keep it, that is what God is saying, I am never going to let this out of My sight, and I do not want it to be forgotten by any of My people. Think of God treasuring the manna so much; His valuation of the life of Jesus was such that His treasure is there. We know little of most of the life of Jesus; I believe the first thirty years were for God, they are treasured in the divine treasury.

God says to the overcomer, “To him that overcomes, to him will I give of the hidden manna”, Revelation 2: 17. He says, I am keeping something, it is secret, it is the life of Jesus, I will give you to partake of that. So God says here, Keep it for your generations, put it there before Jehovah. It is interesting that it says that “Aaron deposited it before the Testimony”. They had just come out of Egypt, the tabernacle had not been set up, the ark had not been made, the tables of stone had not been given, but it shows, I believe, that here was an order of man that God had in mind from the outset. The tables of stone did not represent that order of man, the manna represented it, and if the tables of stone were to be put there in the ark, the manna is to be before it. God says, I am starting with that, first there is the manna, there is a Man who pleases Me in every respect, and you are to feed upon that One.

As we go through the wilderness we come across many exercises. In Numbers even the camp of God was in a state of open rebellion. People saying, Well, we have Moses and Aaron but we are just as good as they are, we can manage on our own. They challenged the way God would bring them, and He says, I am going to give you a sign to show whom I have chosen.

Now each of the tribes was to take one staff and give it to Moses, and Moses put the twelve staves in the tabernacle. There they were kept overnight, and in the morning the staff of Aaron had this wonderful effect, it “had budded, and brought forth buds, and bloomed blossoms, and ripened almonds”. You know what that speaks of? Life, life out of death. The manna is the life of Jesus as He was seen upon earth, but here we have an evidence of the life of Jesus out of death. There is One whom God has thus distinguished. Every other man has failed in God’s view. You think of these twelve elders, each one took his staff. Think of them going up to Moses and there he was with the twelve staves, and maybe they all looked at the one that had budded first saying. Is that mine? Every other man has failed, every man has “come short of the glory of God”, Romans 3: 23. The Lord Jesus in accomplishing the work of salvation has been raised by the glory of the Father. Peter speaks of Him having been exalted by the right hand of God. God would not leave Him in death. It is as if God had, from the heavens above, reached down into the depths of death, and raised Him up and given Him a place of exaltation in glory. There we have it, the staff of Aaron was there, and it budded and it brought forth blossoms and ripened almonds. Life was there and not only life but fruitfulness was there and God said it was to be kept, just as the manna was to be kept, this rod is to be kept, “Bring Aaron’s staff again before the testimony, to be kept”.

How God would delight in that! He said, Keep it there to stop the murmurings. God has laid help upon One who pleases Him and He has given Him glory. God said, Keep that before the testimony, keep that before the children of Israel. God could take account of it too. There was One who was distinguished in every respect by God, against the background of failure by every other man. Christ is distinguished, and yet this is not simply that Christ is distinguished, Aaron was the high priest. Sometimes we feel weak in the pathway; we find we are not able to live up to the standards we set ourselves, but we have a High Priest. He has been distinguished by God; He has been in our circumstances. He is not unable to sympathise, as the writer to the Hebrews says. In other words He can appreciate the circumstances of life. He knows what it is like to move here in a scene amongst men, He can appreciate that, and now He is on high, distinguished by God, but there He is serving as priest. He is our High Priest, and He is able to intercede for us, to take up our cause for us. He serves us so that, although we are passing through a scene of corruption and death morally, we should have liberty to approach God Himself, to take up the part that God would have us enjoy in His own presence in His service. That is what, if the Lord leaves us here, we would desire to do tomorrow morning. On that occasion we would seek to take up our part in God’s service in a distinctive way. Is this reserved for Lord’s day morning, or do we have a part in God’s service at other times? The service of God goes on constantly, it is always going on.

There is a great Priest above, He is distinguished in things relating to God, and God is desirous of seeking an answer from His people. Christ is available. If we feel weak, if we feel that we cannot rise to heavenly things, Christ is available as Priest, in view of our weakness here.

Sometimes we find more than weakness, we are going through a corrupting world; it is not only corrupt, it is corrupting. You cannot go through this scene without being exposed to what is corrupt and what is corrupting. You cannot even go down the high street without being exposed to what is corrupting, so God makes another provision; Christ in another setting. He says. Take “a red heifer without blemish, wherein is no defect, and upon which never came yoke”. Nobody needs to be told who that refers to, “without blemish, wherein is no defect”. There is only one Man who shines out like that and never came under yoke. He was never beholden to anyone. You think of the Lord Jesus in all His distinctiveness. God said, Take the red heifer, and it is taken outside the camp. The red heifer is slain, its blood is taken and put before the tent of meeting, so that although we are in a defiling world, God would have us to be assured that there is still a way open for access into His presence. Then the heifer is burnt and everything about it was burnt. Think of all the Lord Jesus endured, that He bore in view of the whole matter of sin and the defilement that has come into God’s creation being met. “And the priest shall take cedar-wood, and hyssop, and scarlet, and cast them into the midst of the burning”. As you take account of the death of Jesus, you see that all that I am, anything that distinguishes me naturally, God sees to it that it is gone in the death of Jesus. It might be in my pride, it might be in my lower feelings, whatever distinguishes me, it all goes in the death of Christ; God has come to an end of it all, it has all gone into the burning. “And the priest shall wash his garments”, and so on.

You say, How do I avail myself of that? It says, “a clean man shall gather the ashes of the heifer, and deposit them outside the camp in a clean place, and it shall be kept ... for a water of separation”. Christ is still available, not only is He available as food, not only is He available because of our weakness, but He is available for us when we find defilement and corruption coming in.

He is still available; the ashes of the heifer are kept there, not in the Testimony. You could not bring those things into the holy place; it is outside the camp, and what happens? The running water is taken, the power of the Holy Spirit comes in, the ashes are applied with the running water to the one who has been defiled. Read this chapter, it is an instructive chapter.

What you will find is that there are people there who are going through the normal events of life, maybe even doing what they needed to do and became defiled in doing it. Yet how important it is to resort to the Lord Jesus, to the death of Christ, and ask the Holy Spirit to help us, in order that whatever may have come into our minds or hearts may be removed by reference to the death of Christ. The Holy Spirit does that, it is really what the running water does, it is applying the ashes of the heifer. The Lord Jesus has died—the ashes of the heifer—and the Holy Spirit—the running water—is used to apply His death to the believer. As you go through the details, you find it is applied twice. Firstly it brings us to a sense of how unsuitable corruption is to the presence of God and the people of God; what a sense of sorrow that would give. Then it is applied again giving a sense of liberty, the liberty in which God would have His people to be free before Him. The thing is that it is always available.

Beloved, that was my simple message. These things are kept, the manna is kept for God’s food and man’s food. God would have us feed upon the One upon whom He feeds. Aaron’s rod was kept. Christ who was distinguished in resurrection and in glory is now serving as Priest. In times of defilement we have recourse to One whose work has been kept. The death of Christ, typified in the ashes of the heifer, is constantly available. Christ is always available; there is never a circumstance for the believer where Christ is not available. May the Lord bless the word.

Address at Edinburgh
8 June 2002