Exodus is one of God’s two foundational books; showing us just how God sets people free. But last time we saw their Red Sea `baptism` (as Paul puts it) closing off their past forever — yet Exodus doesn’t finish! So what’s the remainder for? God’s people have been set free; now what?
Here’s the point: redemption and `baptism’ are a start, not an end. God has far greater things for His people; but for this there must be more learning, more growth. Or let’s say, God’s got Israel out of Egypt, now He wants to get Egypt out of Israel. So He leads them into the wilderness; because (as 1 Peter makes clear) there is maturing that happens, lessons to be learnt, in our wilderness experiences, that can be learnt nowhere else. (Certainly not in heaven where there will be no difficulties to train us!) It must be so, otherwise God who loves us so massively would never let us go through them. So how does this growth happen?
The first thing we hear about, three days after the Red Sea, is the Israelites grumbling (15:24 – and 16:2 and 17:3…) To be fair, three days is a long time to be without water when you’ve got thirsty kids & none of you are used to the desert – and then, you find water, and it’s undrinkable (15:23). (We may slip into a similar resentment after we’ve become Christians if we’re told `In His presence, our problems disappear`, because they don’t always; we get a whole new perspective now, yes, but…) But faith and resentment are mutually exclusive, and faith means learning (slowly?) to get a grip on what we feel, and march on step by step with God. 16:3 helps us by showing how their lack of faith arose; they’d lost the thankful sense of God’s love, and were dwelling on what they had back in Egypt. (`There we sat round pots of meat, and ate all we wanted!`; yes, and you were in complete bondage to the powers of evil. We can fall into the same mistake.) God is gentle with them at this stage: He will get more serious about it later when they keep grumbling (and they do, because continual miracles won’t change a bent heart); because that can grow into rebellion, unbelief, disaster. In the end most of that generation never made it into the promised land.
So what’s God’s solution? What are the two key lessons in ch.16? We can summarise them as `trust and obey’ (see also Deut 8:2-5). Choose to trust: God’s a Father who surely has no desire to harm us; we’re actually in the wilderness because He loves us and wants us to grow into our destiny.
So through most of ch16 the Israelites are being taught: First, in the wilderness, take the trouble to collect and feed daily on God’s manna. Anyone who didn’t would soon lack strength for the journey. What’s the application for us? Feed daily (that’s emphasised) on Jesus, God’s provision for our journey (that’s how Jesus Himself builds on this passage, see John 6:48-51). `He fed you with manna`, says Deuteronomy 8:3, `to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD!` Faith that Jesus’ words actually `are Spirit and they are life` (John 6:63) will move us to gather and feed on them daily. (And I find the gospels are especially what we need, feeding directly on Jesus, in the wilderness times.)
And the other training in this chapter is about learning dependence on God; expressed particularly in obedience to God about taking a day off a week, and trusting Him for the consequences. (Another Exodus case of being set free from slavery?) Again, whether we obey God’s command shows whether we trust Him; and it’s `Those who honour me I will honour`, says God. People don’t live by bread alone – nor by our own labours alone. A life shaped by trust in God’s love leads to rest and recovery; the alternative, to workaholism and breakdown. This matters a lot in wilderness times.
(A day off a week? In your dreams, someone may say. And yes, man was not made for the sabbath – but the sabbath was made for man (Mk 2:27), we ignore it at our peril, and we can’t go on doing so forever. If that’s you, decide prayerfully how to carve out some real rest each week (if you’re doing so much there’s no time to rest, then you’re doing something somewhere that God doesn’t want you to do, and that’s really not clever); and then protect it in Jesus’ name! You’re right to do so – you’re commanded to do so!)
Only after these wilderness lessons are they `ready for war’(13:17-18); and sure enough in ch17 it comes – their first battle for 400 years! And something else bizarre happens, so vital that I’ve preached it more times than I can remember! Well, next time…
