Manna in the Field

He Israelites must have learned Azs goodness, because He had not supplied them with tasteless food. According to the Apocrypha, which is not to be received as Scripture, but still is often valuable in some respects, each man tasted the manna according to his own liking. There was something about it that enabled the mouth to give its own flavour to it; and their marchings through the wilderness, and their weariness, would often add a sauce to it that made it exceedingly sweet to them. It was like wafers made with honey, not at all unpalatable. It was, as I have already told you, like fresh oil, by no means disagreeable to an Eastern. God did not give them beggars’ food, spare scraps and broken victuals. He had said,- “Twill rain bread from heaven for you,” and He kept His word. The least bit of heaven’s bread must be delicious to the taste. “Man did eat angels’ food,” said the psalmist; and that cannot be bad food which falls from the table of cherubim and seraphim, such food as spirits might partake of if they might partake of any, light, and pure, and ethereal, and spiritual, as far removed from the grosser forms of materialism as food well could be, a godlike food for a godlike race if they had but been worthy of their destiny, and had been willing to learn what. God was so ready to teach them.

* Exodus xvi.

Their position was in many respects a very pleasant one. They had not to work for daily bread, they had only to go out and gather it. J¢ was given every day; they never had any store. A man who gathered manna for twenty years might say, in language that I have often heard, “I ain’t a bit forrarder, I am just where I was twenty years ago,” as if it was not getting forwarder to be twenty years older, and to have had twenty years of mercy. Yet there was no store of manna; all up and down the wilderness there was not a single bank in which people could put their money, there was no such thing as a dividend to be received by anybody, and nobody could be laying up anything. Each Israelite had what he wanted for the day; he kept on having just so much and no more, and this was a test. Could he endure that test?

And then, again, as there was no store for the whole of them, and they did not get any richer, so there was ’ no opportunity for greed, for zt was given to every man. He who thrust out his two hands to rake up the manna, when he returned to his tent, had an omerful for himself, and his wife, and his eight children, but he had not any more. He thought the next day, perhaps, that he would sweep away by the half-hour together if he could, as long as the dew was remaining, and get an extra quantity; but when he examined it, he had exactly as much as he and his family could eat, and no more. The rest was all gone, evaporated, and nothing was left over and above what he needed; and his poor palsied neighbour, who could only get a little together in his basin, with his hand, found that, somehow, he had enough, for God made it to grow in the basin, and when he looked at it, there was just enough for the day’s supply.

It is so with grace; God gives us as much grace as we want, but there is nobody here who has any grace laid up. Oh, yes! I heard one person say that she had so much grace that she had not sinned for months. Ugh! I thought I smelt something. I did not say anything; but I remembered what manna does when it is kept, and there I left the subject. I hope none of you think that you have more grace than you need, because you have not. You may, possibly, have as much grace as will last you through to-day; but you will need as much as that to-morrow morning, if not more. Oh, yes, I know that you have an iron safe, and you go and rattle your keys, and you say, “Look here; I have grace enough locked up for the next six weeks.” Go again, and you will be glad to run away from the stench, for you will find that you have locked up so much pride, and nothing else. We do not want dying grace till we come to die; be satisfied to have living grace while you live.

This gift of the manna, every day for every man, was a test by which the Lord taught the children of Israel.

So was that Friday storing, when they said to themselves, ‘“We get into the habit of gathering our food every morning, but here comes this Friday, when we have to gather twice as much.” I do like consistency, always doing the same thing; but here is a command to do twice as much once a week, here is a law that shifts a bit. I like systematic theology; but here is a sliding seat. Here is a double supply for Friday, and I have to store half of it up. So one man did not store it up when he was told to do so, and another man tried to store it up when he was told not to do so. Thus the Lord tested and tried them. It is a wonderful thing, that testing to which God puts us. Sometimes, when we think that we have such a surplus of faith in Him, He just tests us, and we find that we have not any. The grandest life is a life of dependence upon God, for that is true independence. If you wholly depend upon God, then have you risen to independence. He who has nothing but what God gives him day by day, has a competence. He is the man who has saved most who has least, for he is saved from the worry of taking care of it. If he is still dependent upon God’s providence, and faith can keep her hold, he is the best-off man after all. You said that you envied the Israelites. Ah, well you may; but you want faith, or else what might be a theme of envy becomes a subject of discontent. So I leave that point.

The Lord teaches us by this manna as to temporal things — He teaches us that our supplies depend upon Him. Where did all the manna come from? It all came from God. Child of God, all thy supplies must come from God. Learn thou that. Whatever the second causes, whatever the intermediary sources, all thou art to have will come whence all thou hast had has come, namely, from God.

Learn, next, that our supplies are sure to faith. If the manna did not fail for forty years, neither will the Lord fail to supply thy needs. Thy God will give thee thy livery, if thou art His servant. He will give thee thy daily rations also if thou servest Him. “Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.” He who carves for himself will cut his fingers, and get an empty plate; but he who waits for the great Host of all the chosen family to carve for him shall have enough, and that of the best. “My God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus.”

But learn from the children of Israel that our supplies will have to be gathered and prepared by ourselves. God sent the manna from heaven; but the people had to go out every morning, and get it in; and when they had gathered it, we read that they used to beat it in mortars, or grind it in mills, and bake it in pans, and make it into cakes. God is not the patron of idleness. He will have His people work; and His rule is, “If any man will not work, neither shall he eat,” a rule He often carries out with those who are idlers. Though labour came at first as a curse, God has turned it into a blessing.

And, once more, our supplies ought to content us, for the children of Israel had enough for all their needs. They had no superfluities; but they had all-sufficiency. They had no luxuries; but yet if they chose to think so, their daily mercies became luxuries to them. Oh, that God might teach us to trust Him as to temporals!