Background
As we have noted before, Exodus is about God being made known, first by his word and then by walking with him in experience. I have been learning the computer language C++ recently. As I read the books and study the distance learning material on my PC I understand quite well what is being said -that's the 'word' bit, but until I actually put what I have learned through listening into practice by writing my own programs with that new knowledge, I soon lose much of what was learnt. We do not retain knowledge well unless the lesson is reinforced by repetitive active example - that's the 'experience bit'.
In chapter 3 of Exodus God comes to Moses, saying, "I have seen the affliction of the Israelites, I have come down to you, I will send you, and I will be with you." So God recognises the suffering of his people, he does something about it himself, he calls on his people to act in obedience to himself, and - most interestingly for our present study - he promises to be with them through the journey of life. It is in this last part that his word becomes cemented in our hearts.
Context
We have reached the point in the history where the Egyptians have been utterly routed at the Red Sea, and the giving of the Law at Mt. Sinai is before the Israelites. They find themselves in a desert wasteland with its associated deprivations. God has an angle on this, and so do the Israelites. Let's take the latter first...
In verse 7 of chapter 17, the issue for the Israelites is clarified for us when they ask, "Is God really among us?" Despite all that has happened to them they have not yet learned to trust God's promise, "I will be with you."
Jesus promises his followers difficulties that will come from living a life following him. We too experience life in a desert wasteland of sorts – it's where God deliberately leads us. The wasteland manifests itself in illness, poverty, relationships problems, so on and so forth. Many believers I know are going through extremely difficult trials at the moment. In my own situation of joblessness this question the Israelites ask has not been far from my heart and my lips. "Is God really there? Does he really care about me and my family? Does he care about his own reputation to help me?"
Jim Spense says of the Israelites, "Perhaps they are beginning to question their deliverance and specifically God’s part in it." Again, I feel a pang of sympathy with them for it has been how I have been tempted to think. Chapter 17 verse 7 describes this attitude of grumbling as 'testing' God, or 'proving' God as some translations have it. This then is the Israelite angle on the wilderness experience, one of testing God.
For God’s angle on these events we do well to look at his comments on the Marah event in chapter 15 and the Desert of Sin event in chapter 16. 15:25 and 16:4 state quite clearly that God is testing them.
How might we understand this 'testing'? Let's return to computer programming to explain it. The word 'testing' in this context is like writing a computer program – you write the code for one part and then run it in a test environment to see if does what you expect. You then edit the code and test again. Eventually you release the program into the live environment. Failure becomes a learning opportunity for future success.
So, testing is a means of strengthening. God has set apart a people for himself. He is teaching them what it means to be in relationship with the holy God, what it means to live as God’s people. He puts them repeatedly through situations that teach the same lesson until they respond in the way he wants them to - when they no longer fail.
Faith and Obedience
I suggest there are two important ingredients in the Christian life and both can be found in our passage. In 15:26 & 16:4 the ingredient is obedience to God’s word. In 16:12 the other ingredient is belief (knowing), or faith. So, faith in God's word and then obedience to it. Getting the knowledge and then acting on it.
We could describe the Christian life as one of discipleship. Whilst discipleship has positive connotations for us, there is a very closely related word which has negative connotations, and that word is 'discipline'.
Here is God talking about this part of the journey 39 years eleven later:
[1] Be careful to follow every command I am giving you today, so that you may live and increase and may enter and possess the land that the LORD promised on oath to your forefathers. [2] Remember how the LORD your God led you all the way in the desert these forty years, to humble you and to test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands. [3] He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your fathers had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD. [4] Your clothes did not wear out and your feet did not swell during these forty years. [5] Know then in your heart that as a man disciplines his son, so the LORD your God disciplines you.(Deuteronomy 8:2-5)
Back in Exodus 15:25-26 God says he will test them, and if they obey his word and trust him then he will spare them judgement and 'heal them'. God’s lesson is this, God saves, but there is a condition. That condition is that his salvation depends on on us being dependent on him and obeying him.
TESTING
Let's look at how God tests them and thus improves their faith and obedience in him. The mechanics of testing involve putting them in an inhospitable environment. In the unpleasant environment they suffer trials which make their needs very visible to them for it is at the level of basic human needs, food and water. But he test them another way, and that is through his laws and decrees.
I will take chapter 16 to show how this operates. Here the Israelites are one month out of Egypt and close to Sinai, so they are on track, but they are suffering from a lack of food.
In verses 4-5 we learn that God is going to do two things:
1. Rain down bread on them. God meets the physical need in miracle.
2. Test their ability to obey his word.
God intervenes in a demonstration of love but it involves a test.
God does not provides them with a big Sainsbury’s (large UK supermarket chain like K-Mart) freezer truck or two to keep them going for a month or so. His provision is daily. This tells us that God's test of our faith is also daily! You will remember that the Lord's prayer contains the line, 'Give us our daily bread'. God wants to develop a perpetual and habitual faith; not one that is wound up like clockwork on Sundays.
Notes on provision
Notice that needs are met sufficiently. In 15:27, at Elim there are twelve springs for the twelve tribes and 70 palm trees for the seventy clans of Israel. It is of course God’s very nature to give water to the thirsty and food to the hungry. The Israelites fail all the tests but God meets failure with continuing provision and love.
Dependence
Here in the UK there has often been a debate about the so-called 'Nanny State'. People do not like government interference in their lives, especially if that interference is of a moral nature. They tolerate the state as a necessary evil to be endured, and only when they are in desperate need do they want the state's involvement in their lives. The rejection of communism is symptomatic of this human characteristic to reject moral imposition and restriction by a powerful 'nanny', checking peoples' behaviour, watching everything they do and stopping their illicit enjoyments. So, does God believe in the nanny state?
What we can say is that God expects us to have a daily dependence on him. God’s people must come to rest in God’s strength and not their own. They must accept the humility (Deut 8:3) of being helpless children before him and utterly dependent. "Suffer the little children unto me…the kingdom of God belongs to such as these," says Jesus. God does seem to want to be involved in our lives in exactly the same 'invasive' way as the nanny state. The difference is that God's involvement is that of a besotted lover and not that a control freak.
Manna - the Lesson in Obedience
The instructions about gathering manna are highly detailed. They are a test where God sees to what lengths they will go to prove their obedience to him. They must comply whether they like it or not and through this rigorous regime they learn obedience. They learn through their failures to obey that their greed brings no reward at all. They learn to trust God’s word for their provision. If he promises to do something, then he will, however unlikely the circumstances may make that look.
It is worth noting is passing that in 15:25 the word 'showed' is from the same root as the word Torah, meaning to instruct. God is making his character known to the Israelites and to us. He does so through instruction and law-giving, the latter creating the right polarity of relationship – God, the master first and then us, the servants next.
You will notice again (16:33) that following generations are to learn these lessons by seeing the evidence of an omer of manna kept in the Ark of the Covenant.
Rolling Rock
In 1 Corinthians 10:4 Paul talks about Jesus as the rock that accompanied the Israelites in the desert. The picture is of the rock at Rephidim in chapter 17 gushing forth its miraculous water. This is a picture of Christ who brings 'streams of living water' as he tells us in John 7:38.
I hear there is an old rabbinic legend that talks of a rock that rolled along after the nation through their years in the desert.( I’m not going to do a commercial for Rolling Rock beer – but is it a good beer? With that name, what do you think?). This legend is clearly apocryphal but it is an excellent illustration of a spiritual truth: God is with us and God provides.
The manna is furthermore, a picture of Jesus. Jesus is the 'bread of life' -
[30] So they asked him, “What miraculous sign then will you give that we may see it and believe you? What will you do? [31] Our forefathers ate the manna in the desert; as it is written: ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’” [32] Jesus said to them, “I tell you the truth, it is not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. 33For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” [34]“Sir,” they said, “from now on give us this bread.” [35]Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty. (John 6:30-35)
The issue for the Jews is finding out who Jesus is. They are seeking a sign that will tell them, but they are shocked when he likens himself to manna from heaven. The word manna means literally, 'what is it?' from the Hebrew man hu. I hope you see the connection between the questions, 'what is it?' and 'who are you?' There is an important lesson we can draw from this about Jesus. In the desert, God met physical needs and saved life. Now in the last days, Jesus meets spiritual need and saves lives.