THE MANNA (2)
[p. 83] THE MANNA (2)
Rem We have noticed that the quails were given once but the manna daily.
CAC “Between the two evenings ye shall eat flesh, and in the morning ye shall be filled with bread; and ye shall know that I am Jehovah your God” (verse 12). It is the blessed way in which God is made known to us. He brings us, through His grace, to the end of the day of murmuring; through His grace it has no longer place with us. “Flesh” sets forth the wondrous fact that Christ has come in flesh to bear the judgment of what we were as in flesh, in murmuring flesh. He came in holy flesh. The day marked by incessant murmurings ends. None of us are supposed to be going on with it. Bread from heaven does not sustain a life of murmuring. The death of Christ is the end of the murmurer. We are always inclined to murmur naturally. Anything that does not fit in with our natural tastes causes us to murmur and we are inclined to blame God for it. We first murmur and then complain. “Murmurers, complainers” (Jude 16) is the order. First there is the inward murmuring and then the complaining. That is not the new manner of life. That day ends by our apprehending the fact that Christ has borne the judgment of the murmurer — the flesh as discovered in the people of God, not as in an unconverted man. God gives us “flesh”. “When Jehovah gives you in the evening flesh to eat” (verse 8). There is first the ending of that day. The new day is begun eating the new bread out of heaven. What is that? A new manner of life characterised by entire dependence, seen here in Jesus. Everything comes down from heaven. “I will rain bread from heaven for you” (verse 4). The manna is what is perfectly set forth in the Lord Jesus — entire dependence and absolute obedience. “Man doth not live by bread alone, but by everything that goeth out of the mouth of Jehovah doth man live”
([p. 84] Deuteronomy 8: 3) is said in reference to the manna. It gives us the spiritual idea of the manna. Learn to live by what goes out of God’s mouth: our spirits live and we live by that. The Lord actually lived by it. He would not make the stone into bread. He lived by every word that proceeded out of God’s mouth. That would bring about a heavenly character of life in the wilderness.
Rem No murmuring or complaining.
CAC “The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places: yea, I have a goodly heritage. Jehovah is the portion of mine inheritance and of my cup: thou maintainest my lot” (Psalm 16: 6,5).
Ques Does John 6 surpass the manna?
CAC “The bread of God” in John 6 is contrasted with the manna. Manna suffices to sustain us for life here, wilderness life, but not for over Jordan. In John 6 the food “abides unto life eternal”; it carries us into a spiritual and eternal region where there are no necessities except the needs of affections that crave for God and for Christ.
Ques Is the manna for the Christian alone, or is it for all men?
CAC It is limited to those who have been redeemed — to His own people, not the Egyptians. They did not appreciate the manna but it was the divine thought for them.
God has brought us out of Egypt. The death of Christ is between us and Egypt. God is our salvation and we are brought to the abode of His holiness (chapter 15: 2, 13).
Rem The Red Sea is deliverance from Egypt, from the world.
CAC “By faith they passed through the Red sea”.
Moses kept the passover for all Israel (Hebrews 11: 28, 29). Our Moses has kept the passover for us. “For also our passover, Christ, has been sacrificed” (1 Corinthians 5: 7). He has undertaken the whole business. But when it comes to a question of the world we have to move: “Speak unto the children of Israel, that they go forward” (Exodus 14: 15). Romans 5 answers to “Stand still”, Romans 6 to “Go forward”. We are outside [p. 85] the world by redemption, on new ground and in a new kind of life, “newness of life”, which is only sustained by what comes from heaven as typified in the manna. We are absolutely dependent upon it.
Going forward involves being true to our baptism. “Ye have obeyed from the heart the form of teaching into which ye were instructed” (Romans 6: 17). God has been pleased to put the teaching (the truth) into a tangible form for us. We are put under water. To have “obeyed from the heart” is a wonderful moment for the Christian. He moves forward then to take the ground of a man outside this world altogether according to the springs of his being, living in resurrection power, “newness of life”. A Christian’s life is a miracle. And how is it kept up? By food; the constitution is built up and it is manna that does it.
Rem We see that in the eunuch in Acts 8: after his baptism it says of him that “he went on his way rejoicing”. It was “newness of life” for him.
CAC It is the Christian’s desire to walk in a manner of life in perfect contrast to the natural man. It is the glory of a natural man to do his own will. When you murmur it is that something crosses your own will (that is the secret of murmuring and complaining). God intended it to be so. God reminds you that as a Christian you must live on an entirely different principle. You must start to live this miraculous life, the life of a Christian. It is no use to say, ‘We are poor, weak things’.
Rem “We do know that all things work together for good to those who love God” (Romans 8: 28).
CAC Such are persons who have been having the manna. Why should the blessed God who loves us permit these things? He says, as it were, ‘It is an opportunity for you to learn what I have provided for you in Christ’. We have often to be reminded of things we know. That is what admonition is, a putting in mind of what you really know.
After the Red Sea and the song they went three days in the wilderness and found no water; there was nothing to minister to them. “And they came to Marah, and could not drink the waters of Marah, for they were bitter”. It was not according to their natural tastes and desires. We have to honestly face it and either have what is pleasing to the flesh, or accept nothing but suffering in the flesh. “Christ, then, having suffered for us in the flesh, do ye also arm yourselves with the same mind: for he that has suffered in the flesh has done with sin” (1 Peter 4: 1). If I gratify myself I sin, if I suffer I cease from sin. It is the bringing in of Christ that sweetens things. If Christ suffered in the flesh, that is the path for me. “There he made for them a statute and an ordinance” (chapter 15: 25). You are to suffer in the flesh — it is an unchangeable principle — and learn to live by manna. It is either the flesh or Christ for each one of us. There are no complications about it. We have to get sustainment and support from heaven, not from any natural source: something straight from heaven to enable you to turn the trial into a triumph; that is what the manna is for. Every need is met by grace out of heaven. The smallest thing in the precious, holy life of our blessed Lord was out of heaven, “fine, ... fine as hoar-frost” (verse 14). In the life of the Lord Jesus each circumstance of the wilderness, each grain of sand, has its beautiful bit of manna on it. Nothing ever overcame Him. Could any circumstance be too much for the grace of heaven? Every circumstance or testing or trial is a vessel to hold the grace of heaven.
It is beautiful to see the object that God has in view in the connection between the manna and the sabbath. “See, for Jehovah hath given you the Sabbath”. “The rest, the holy Sabbath, of Jehovah” (verses 29, 23). It is the end of six days of living on the manna, gathering it and living on it. On the seventh day there was to be no gathering, but a living on it. It is a day of no wilderness exercise, no more toil or labour, but rest. A day in which there is nothing to interfere with our enjoyment of Christ with God. The life God would have us to live in the wilderness is such that there would be nothing to interfere with our enjoying that sabbath — rest with Himself.
[p. 87] Ques Would that be true as regards the Lord’s Day?
CAC If really sustained by manna we would be undistracted when we come together.
Rem The manna followed the dew (verses 13, 14).
CAC It is a lovely touch. The dew suggests something that precedes the manna. We need to be divinely refreshed in our spirits before we can appreciate the manna. First dew, then manna. We have all received some dew at some time or other. I like to wake up first thing in the morning and my first thought be of the Lord. That is dew, the spirit is refreshed.
Do you ever feel dry? Dew is the sovereign movement of God on our spirits. God says, “I will be as the dew unto Israel”. Israel has been dry for three thousand years but God will refresh their affections and they will then say, “This is our God”. The dew is a divine refreshing: it falls silently and well-nigh invisibly: there is no noise but it comes down and refreshes everything. It is a blessed movement of God on His people.
The manna was to be “gathered”, “cooked”, “baked” (verse 23). It all speaks of exercise that the full value of the manna may be realised. The cooking here suggests the exercise necessary to get the full value of it, not as in Numbers 11 where it was done to make it palatable. There the spiritual character of the manna is pointed out, when they despised it, it was “as the taste of oil-cakes” (verse 8); that is the spiritual character of it. It is a dreadful thing to despise what is so entirely spiritual. Here (Exodus 16) it is the sweetness of it that is commented upon: “And the taste of it was like cake with honey” (verse 31). We can get the beautiful grace out of heaven to meet everything so as to be able to look at things as Christ looked at them and to walk as He walked. I do not know any other suitable walk for the Christian.
Ques What is the “pot of manna” (verses 32, 33)?
CAC It is very beautiful as showing that the manna is never to be forgotten or lost sight of. There may come a time when we do not need it, when we touch the scene of divine purpose all brought to fruition in a risen and glorified Christ.
[p. 88] At that point we do not need the manna as food, but for contemplation. It is the eternal theme of contemplation in heaven — the wonderful life of the Lord Jesus in wilderness circumstances, and the grace He ministered from heaven to enable His people to walk like Him in wilderness circumstances. The wonderful preciousness of a dependent and obedient life in the presence of testing and opposition seen perfectly in the Lord Jesus from infancy to the end of His pathway here is all treasured in the golden pot. Much was never seen by the eyes of men. “Thou didst make me trust, upon my mother’s breasts” (Psalm 22: 9). His mother never saw it. It is part of the hidden manna. It is all treasured in the golden pot to be the theme of adoration for ever. It was “deposited before the Testimony” (verse 34), suggesting that God is going to secure a kind of life in man in perfect correspondence with His testimony — secured in Christ. There was never any misrepresentation of God’s testimony in Christ. We shall be in keeping with the testimony if we live on the manna. We shall be preserved in accord with God’s testimony, a most important thing today. That testimony takes assembly character at the present time, not individual. The assembly is in the wilderness and is God’s testimony in the wilderness. Everything inconsistent with the testimony is not marked by dependence and obedience but by man’s own resources. All that is in dependence and obedience constitutes the testimony. All else is inconsistent with the manna or the Sabbath, be it individual or assembly conditions.