Every Word From God's Mouth

Prayer

How’s this going to work?

It’s no secret there’s been a push for more electric vehicles on the roads, idea of reducing our carbon emissions. But there was a news story recently that surprised me, the Secretary of Energy was pushing for the military to have an entirely electric vehicle fleet by 2030, including tactical vehicles.

Which, on the one hand, sounds like it could have a lot of benefits - military utilizes a lot of vehicles, so all those vehicles operating on cleaner energy, that could be a good thing, they made the argument that tactically, electric vehicles are much quieter, emit less heat - that could be helpful when you’re trying transport unbeknownst to your enemy.

But then, you start to think about the logistics of what electric vehicles require - immediate question would be, where would they recharge? Last couple of places we’ve been engaged in combat…Iraq, Afghanistan, I’m thinking the charging stations located there would be few and far between. Then, of course, if your electric grid gets taken out.

Reminder of logistics of dealing with armies and providing all the supplies they need (rations, ammunition, medical supplies, shelter, fuel) to fight - wars have been won and lost due to supply issues and an army’s ability - or inability - to get needed supplies to their troops.

Now, it wasn’t an army, but this same dilemma immediately faces the Israelites as they - by God’s mighty hand - escape Egypt, escape slavery.

Think about it for a moment - an entire nation of people, some estimates as high as two million people, just left their homes, their “livelihood”, wandering into the desert with no clear direction about where they are going, other than God’s taking them to the Promised Land, land of Canaan. Where are you going to get the food and water necessary to keep all these people alive?

We’ve been making our way through the Old Testament, through the book of Exodus, and last week, we looked at how God had miraculously brought the Israelites through the sea of reeds on dry land - while simultaneously drowning the Egyptian army in that same sea, destroying the great threat against them. We finished with them safe on the far side of the sea of reeds, outside of Egypt, freed from slavery, and they were singing songs of praise to God. Their joy doesn’t last long.

Not entirely surprising that the grumbling and complaining begins almost immediately. First, in the later part of Exodus 15, the Israelites complain about the lack of water they can drink.

Then, in the passage we’re going to look at this morning, Exodus 16, they start complaining to Moses about food - they’re hungry. The chapter references their grumbling seven times - they have reached “hangry” level.

Verses 1-3: The whole Israelite community set out from Elim and came to the Desert of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month after they had come out of Egypt. 2 In the desert the whole community grumbled against Moses and Aaron. 3 The Israelites said to them, “If only we had died by the Lord’s hand in Egypt! There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death.”

What I want to look at this morning is not simply what God does in response to their griping and complaining - but more importantly, why he does it (and what we can learn from it).

God’s Faithful Provision

Picking back up on the story, we learn what God does in response to their grumbling, Exodus 16:4...Then the Lord said to Moses, “I will rain down bread from heaven for you. The people are to go out each day and gather enough for that day.

God does exactly that - he rains down bread. The Israelites wake up, there’s this flaky substance all over the ground, all around them, and as the morning dew dries, the Israelites are able to gather up the food they need for that day. This is amazing, nothing like this has ever happened - this whole nation of people, come out of their tents, every morning, their food is scattered all around them.

You might be wondering, well, what was it, what kind of food just shows up on the ground. Same question the Israelites had - they had no idea. To this day, we have no idea - all we have is the description in Exodus 16 - it was clearly edible - you could bake it, boil it, it was like white coriander seed and apparently tasted like wafers made with honey (which sounds pretty good). but it was completely unknown. The Israelites were like, what is it? That became its name, manna, which means “what is it?”. Kinda like the Whatchamacallit candy bar.

Other fascinating dynamic about this story - beyond the fact that bread is showing up every single day, right there, is how specific God’s instructions are - he doesn’t just let it rain down every morning and that’s it. Have at it! There are very specific rules here:

Every family is to collect an omer for each member of their family (don’t know how much that really was, estimates are between 1 & 2 quarts). As it turned out, we read in the Bible that everyone gathered what they needed - those who gathered much did not have too much and the one who gathered little did not have too little.

But, this was essential - no one was to save any of it. Eat what you collected (clean plate club). Think about how tempting it would have been to save some - we’re out here in the desert, food is very scarce, I’ve got leftovers...

Sure enough, some of them did just that - and they woke up to a rather unpleasant surprise, their jars were filled with maggots and it smelled…bad. They got rid of those leftovers quickly. Won’t do that again - but they didn’t need to, every morning, there was the manna, covering the ground.

Now the final instruction had to do with the Sabbath - on sixth day, day before the Sabbath, they were to collect twice as much as their normal daily ration (two omers) and keep half of it so they would have some for the Sabbath, so they could rest on that day - no need to go out and collect food, prepare meal, etc.

You can imagine there was more than a little apprehension. Last time they tried to save it - maggots! Not this time, maggot and odor free.

But there were those who still tried to get out that morning and collect the manna on the Sabbath…but there wasn’t any. And God was not happy with their failure to obey him: Exodus 16:28…Then the Lord said to Moses, “How long will you (you is plural here) refuse to keep my commands and my instructions?

All this brings us to the why - we see what God did (faithful provision of daily bread, coming down from heaven, with very specific instructions), but the question is why, in particular, why did he do it this way, daily, just enough for that day - and no more, you can’t save it, except for the Sabbath.

We see this in Exodus 16, the last part of verse 4 (I read the first part earlier), Then the Lord said to Moses, “I will rain down bread from heaven for you. The people are to go out each day and gather enough for that day. In this way I will test them and see whether they will follow my instructions.”

I hope you’re noticing how much testing is going on, God constantly testing and stretching the faith of his people to see if they will trust him, obey him. We get an even more explicit explanation in Deuteronomy 8:2-3...Remember how the Lord your God led you all the way in the wilderness these forty years, to humble and 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 ancestors 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.

This is so vital, don’t miss this - the lesson God wanted them to know and learn - lesson they had to be humbled in order to be taught (notice that God caused them to be hungry and then fed them, that’s humbling). The lesson that would reveal their hearts - will they obey me, do they trust me? What was lesson God wanted them to learn?: “Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.” It’s a lesson God wants us to learn as well.

So, what does that mean, man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord? For starters, it means we do live on bread. We need physical sustenance. Our bodies inform us of this on a regular basis…we get hungry. As Rally’s says, “You gotta eat.” (which is terrible slogan, you could read that - well, you gotta eat, might as well eat our food).

That was true for the Israelites, they needed food. They needed something to eat. You can’t traipse across the desert (at least not very long) without food (and water).

God knows we need it - why he rained it down every day for the Israelites. Why Jesus teaches us to pray in what we know as the Lord’s Prayer, “Give us this day our daily bread.” Because we need to eat, we need bread.

But - and this is significant - that’s only a small part of the lesson, not the main part. Not central point God wanted to teach them - and teach us. Remember, this ended up being a 40 year lesson, that’s how long they ended up wandering in the wilderness before they entered the Promised Land.

God was very specific in his instructions - food was only given one day at a time, they were not allowed to save it, other than for the Sabbath day. There’s humbling, testing going on here - because the main lesson is this - God wants us to look to him, what he teaches, what he reveals about himself, who he is - daily, for life. Looking to God as the one who sustains us, for life itself.

Spiritual Over Physical

This might come as quite a shock to some of you, but I don’t always fully listen to Wendy when she’s speaking - I’m distracted, think about something else. In other words, I don’t always give her my full and undivided attention. I’m not, as the saying goes, hanging on to every word that comes out of her mouth.

This is what this passage is referring to - this idea that live according to every word that comes from the mouth of God - that we keep looking to God, giving him our full attention, hanging on to every word that comes out of his mouth. We’re to be hungry for it - as eager to eat that bread when you’re starving! Feed me, Lord!

Think about times when we do that - when a couple first starts dating, they are locked in…when you find someone fascinating, you’re enthralled with what they have to say (as I know most of you are when I preach), someone’s telling a great story…(one of those beer companies featured “most interesting man in the world”)

Underlying assumption here is that God is worth giving him our full attention, to hanging on to his every word. That his glory and goodness and faithfulness are so abundant that we should be enthralled with him. That the truth, the wisdom that he has to teach us about right living, we’d want to soak it right up…yeah, ok, keep going. God has a great story to tell us, the story of love and grace towards us, demonstrated through his Son, and all Jesus has done for us, dying on the cross, offering us fullness of life. As God speaks, as he reveals himself, we discover beauty…and truth…and goodness. Why we to live according to every word that comes from the mouth of God.

We so easily make mistake that if our physical needs are met, we’re good, we have everything that we need.

It’s why wealth and prosperity can be such a hindrance to faith, to relying on God, because it lulls us into a false sense of security and happiness, we fail to recognize our deep neediness for God, and the things that only he can give.

Our mindset is - I’ve got food on table, in the pantry, got some savings set aside, I’ve got what I need, it’s all taken care of. Likewise, if I’m feeling good, healthy, it’s all good - and even if I do get sick, I can go to doctor, I’ve got medical insurance…the list goes on.

But our deep need isn’t bios, or physical life, our deep need is zoe, spiritual or divine life. It’s the need for a connection to God, who is spirit. Our spirit to his. We are unique among the creatures of the earth - all animals have bios, physical life (eat, sleep, play, move), but we alone, human beings, are also spiritual beings. We have - if we’re connected to God, zoe, divine life.

These physical bodies will fade, waste away - we can’t keep them alive no matter how much bread or whatever kind of food we eat. Our spirits are eternal - one day we will have resurrection bodies - immortal, imperishable. I think we’ll eat, but I don’t think we’ll need it.

But whole point of lesson, these instructions, the bread provided day by day - is so that the Israelites would be humbled to the point that they wouldn’t be so focused on the actual food, the bread, but that they would look to the one who provides the bread, to God - keep trusting him, for provisions, for life.

To recognize that what sustains us ultimately is not this bread - but God himself, every word that emerges out of his mouth - truths he speaks, promises he has made, things he teaches, what he reveals about who he is. Those are the words I’m hanging on to.

We get life reversed because we focus on physical - especially in our culture today, we are obsessed with physical (think about how much of our cultural focus is on the physical - how much time and effort and expense we spend on our food, on our appearance, dieting, exercise), over and against the spiritual. But it’s the spiritual that should hold pre-eminence in our lives.

And I don’t think I can give you a better example than Jesus himself - this story so powerful parallels what we see here in Exodus and Deuteronomy, as we’ll see - Jesus being tempted in the wilderness, Matthew 4:1-3...Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. 2 After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. 3 The tempter came to him and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.”

Notice what’s happening here - Jesus is led by the Holy Spirit into the wilderness…for 40 days and nights. (see parallels - wilderness, 40 days??) But even more so, to be tempted by the devil. The Father is testing the Son, will he follow my instructions? Will he be obedient? Will he look to me?

Satan’s suggestion is very tempting - Jesus has been fasting, not eating for 40 days and nights. “He was hungry” is putting it mildly. Demonstrate you’re the Son of God by commanding these stones to be bread. So you can eat.

But watch Jesus’ response - he quotes Deuteronomy 8:3 (his heart is revealed, he knows and is willing to follow God’s instructions!) - vs. 4, Jesus answered, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”

I’m not going to follow your word, Satan, but my Father’s. Those are the words I live by. More so than bread - my Father will provide bread when it pleases him, I trust him. I’m looking to him.

And I want to stop for a moment for us to consider the fact that Jesus is fasting for 40 days and 40 nights -he is willingly giving up food for a set amount of time. Remember, this is all by the leading of the Holy Spirit. Why would he do that? Why would anyone?

Because fasting is a spiritual discipline, a soul training exercise (the kind we talk about every week), in which we forgo our physical needs in order to focus on the spiritual. It’s a way of saying - I need bread, I know that, but more than that, I need God. He is the true source of life. And to make sure I don’t forget that, I’m giving this up, forsaking this physical need for a while - so I can look to the one who nourishes me with true life, zoe, divine life. His are the words that I need to sustain me.

And the fact that fasting is an almost unthinkable concept for us today reveals how bound we are to the physical. And this is not to say that our physical needs aren’t very real, very necessary - it’s to say that our spiritual needs are greater. Are more necessary. They should be the priority. Seeking after God, being with him, listening to every word that comes from his mouth, the truths he teaches, righteousness he reveals, promises he makes - these are the things that truly sustain us, give us life.

That’s the lesson God was trying to teach the Israelites with the manna in the desert, those very specific instructions - look to me everyday. It’s why he tested the Son, leading him into the wilderness to fast for 40 days and nights. It’s what he wants us to learn as well.

Spiritual Disciplines

The Discipline of Fasting. Before I talk about how to fast, a few thoughts on why. Because Jesus alone is Lord over our lives. I will not be mastered by anything (including my stomach). Jesus, you alone are Lord, Master. But it’s also to pursue spiritual, connection with God, by intentionally forsaking the physical.

How: Pick a day this week and start small, begin by skipping a meal. Consider progressing to two meals, a full day. Drink lots and lots of water. For some of you, this may require modifications because of dietary needs (if you’re diabetic, might need to drink some fruit juice).

Use the time you would normally spend preparing and eating that meal in prayer. That’s central idea, forsake the physical in order to pursue the spiritual, to be with Jesus.

Another Discipline I would challenge you to engage in is Discipline of meditation on the word - listen to every word that comes from the mouth of God. Give God your full attention by hanging on to his every word.

Daily meditation on Scripture

Another “word” from God, his creation, quiet reflection - let God reveal his glory through the created order (truth, beauty, goodness).

Because this is where life is found.