All right, you can meet me again in Exodus chapter 16. Exodus chapter 16. As Israel has been rescued and released from Egypt, they find themselves with some new concerns. They have been consumed with concern for obedience to the Egyptians, obedience to Pharaoh. And they've been freed from that slavery. They've been freed from that master. But not merely freed and left to live life any way that they choose. They have been released from slavery to one and have been indentured and enslaved to another. And to a modern American mind, that idea is very, very foreign. but to most people groups of the earth and certainly the people groups of the ancient world that are recorded and represented here in the writings of the Old Testament here in Exodus, that was not an uncommon occurrence. The classes of people were the upper class and the lower class, which would typically translate into being the master class and the slave class. That has just been how the world has worked until this American experiment came in the late 18th century and really hit high gear I guess about the turn of the 20th century where we began to develop a middle class and the middle class became the larger group in American society and we just We will not accept the idea of two classes. It's trying to be forced upon us again, it seems like, but that is not something that we're gonna take lying down. So to see that reality that Israel was taken from one slave master and rescued from him, but not left just to live life autonomously, they've been given a set of expectations from their new master. The one that has rescued them has rescued them for their good, and he is indeed a benevolent master, but a master nonetheless. They're going to have to learn this. This has not necessarily been something that either they have appreciated and understood or something that they have been willing to really think about. There are a group of people that are testing God. It seems like they are constantly putting him to the test. All the while, he continues to say that he is putting them to the test. There just seems to be some incongruity here. That incongruity between what they're trying to do and what Yahweh is trying to get them to do, what bridges that gap and what causes that continuous work of Yahweh in these people to bring them to where they need to be is his patience. He is patient with these people. We tend to have some very caricatured ideas of what God is like. If I were to ask every person individually in this room, what is God like? We'd have a different answer from every person. But the best answer is God is not like anything. God is holy. He is separate. He is an individual unto himself. He has no contemporary. He is too complicated to describe in one way or with one analogy. He is the father of his people. He is the master of his people. He is the provider of his people. He is the one that suffers for his people. Well, how can he be all of those? Well, because he is God. If we were to go around this room and ask the children in this room, what is your dad like? And ask each of the children that individually, they'd all give a different, a little bit of a different answer. But every one of our families would have a different answer about whatever they agreed that dad was like. Because we can't be all things at one time, but God can be all of those at one time. And he is revealing the glory of his person to these people through what they are experiencing. Sometimes I look back at the Old Testament, I look back at what Israel went through. And I remember as we read this, we're reading this through the lens of what has already happened to them, we're looking back at it. And we look at it as believers, we look at it through the lens of the Holy Spirit. But what is happening to these people in real time is something that we should be very ready to empathize with because they're not so unlike you and I. Many of us have walked with the Lord for a very long time in this room. And we've learned some lessons about the Lord that new believers don't know, that people who even that have been believers a long time, but have been very poorly taught in church, things that they just don't know. These people didn't know anything except that God made a promise to some people that they never met, that they never anticipated would come to fruition the way that they have, but they still don't truly know God. So he is taking the time to reveal himself to them. And what he is doing in chapter 16 here is, at least in my mind, is that he is manifesting to these people his patience. And he's manifesting it to you and I as we look at this, because if you were to put yourself in these people's shoes, that's one thing. That would be, you kind of want to put yourself in their shoes and want to condemn them for how they responded. But put yourself in Yahweh's shoes, because this is a record of his patience, not necessarily of their obstinance. Put yourself in his shoes. How would you have responded? You wouldn't respond this way. So what we learn about our God here and what he, the foremost reason for him recording this, because remember we've gone from the Red Sea to Elam in about four days. And then from Elam to what begins in the beginning of chapter 16 is 30 days after they have left. So there's a lot of stuff that happened in 30 days, but this is what's been recorded because this is what God wanted recorded because it tells us more about him that we might grow in our knowledge and understanding of him through this. So let's read it. We're going to read the first 21 verses and we're going to pick up where we left off the last time and see how far we're able to get here in growing in our understanding of our God. And we don't want to be tried about it. I'm not necessarily looking to run through this so that we can say that we went through a particular book of the Bible. I want us to glean as much as we can through here. And it's a lot of work for me. It's a lot of work for you. But if you truly wanna know God, this is the work that it requires. So let's read, starting beginning of the chapter, I think we'll go to verse 21, right? That's the unit that I've collected here in my little pea brain. Moses writes, then they, the children of Israel, set out from Elam. And all the congregation of the sons of Israel came to the wilderness of Zim. which is between Elam and Sinai on the 15th day of the second month after their departure from the land of Egypt. And the whole congregation of the sons of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness. And the sons of Israel said to them, Would that we had died by the hand of Yahweh in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the pots of meat and we ate bread to the full. For you have brought us out into this wilderness to put this whole assembly to death with hunger. Then Yahweh said to Moses, behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you. And the people shall go out and gather a day's portion every day. that I may test them, whether or not they will walk in my law. Now it will be on the sixth day. They shall prepare what they bring in, and it will be twice as much as they gather daily. So Moses and Aaron said to the sons of Israel, at evening you will know that Yahweh has brought you out of the land of Egypt. And in the morning you will see the glory of Yahweh, for he hears your grumblings against Yahweh. And what are we that you grumble against us? And Moses said, this will happen when Yahweh gives you meat to eat in the evening and bread to the full in the morning. For Yahweh hears your grumblings, which you grumble against him. And what are we? Your grumblings are not against us, but against Yahweh. Then Moses said to Aaron, Say to all the congregation of the sons of Israel, come near before Yahweh, for he has heard your grumblings. Now it happened as Aaron spoke to the whole congregation of the sons of Israel, that they turned toward the wilderness and behold, the glory of Yahweh appeared in the cloud. And Yahweh spoke to Moses saying, I have heard the grumblings of the sons of Israel. Speak to them saying, at twilight you shall eat meat. And in the morning you shall be filled with bread so that you shall know that I am Yahweh your God. So it happened at evening that the quails came up and covered the camp. And in the morning there was a layer of dew around the camp. Then the layer of dew evaporated and behold the surface of the wilderness on the surface of the wilderness. There was a fine flake, like thing fine as the frost on the ground. And the sons of Israel saw it and said to one another, what is it? Well, they did not know what it was. And Moses said to them, it is the bread, which Yahweh has given you to eat. This is what Yahweh has commanded. Gather of it, every man, as much as he should eat. And you shall take an omer a piece according to the number of persons each of you has in his tent. And the sons of Israel did so. Some gathered much, some little. And they measured it with an omer. And he who had gathered much had no excess. And he who had gathered little had no lack. Every man gathered as much as he should eat. And Moses said to them, let no man leave any of it until morning. But they did not listen to Moses. And some left part of it until morning. And it bred worms and became foul. And Moses was angry with them. So they gathered it morning by morning, every man as much as he should eat. But the sun would grow hot and it would melt. We could just look at this and say, well, this is where God began to provide manna and focus on the manna and the quail and the amazing nature of the provision of the two of them, and then move on to the next passage. But that's only part of the story here. What we see here is not merely that God provided for them manna and quail. It's the patience that he exemplifies as he does this. When you were a child or now that you are, those of you that are married and have a spouse, was it ever that you knew there was something that you needed to do and something that your parent wanted you to do or that your spouse wanted you to do? You had set a time in your mind when you were going to do it. I'm going to do it at 3 o'clock, or I'm going to do it at 5 o'clock, or I'm going to do it tomorrow, or I'm going to do it Wednesday. I've kind of got things in order. This is when I'm going to do it. And then just before you go to do it, your spouse, your mom, your dad, Just before you're about to go and do it, they remind you, Hey, why have you not done what I asked you to do yet? Does that make you want to do it more? Or does that make you want to put it off a little bit longer? I was right about to do it. And now you're going to come in here and tell me one that I wasn't going to do it. And now you're forcing me to do it on your time. So now that I have, I have to do it. Like if you made me do it, some of you are looking at me, like my head is on fire. But you all are that way. Some may be more than others. And some of you more nervous folk get real nervous and antsy when you realize something's not done that you anticipated being done, and your patience evaporates. I say all that to make this point. You need to understand that these people did not force Yahweh to do anything. This is the timeframe that Yahweh was bringing them to. We're going to see in verse four, he says, I'm going to test them. This part of this was a test for them to see whether they would wait for him or whether they would ask of it from him. They didn't wait and they didn't ask of it from him. They began to try to bully it out of him. They're trying to manipulate God. And if they would have waited until that next morning, this is what Yahweh was about to do anyway. And what is amazing is he didn't do what you and I would have done. That would have been you. Boy, I got something for them tomorrow. They just, the time is right. They're ready. It's going to mean something to them now because they've done without and it's really going to, it's going to show what I think of them and it's going to show what affection I have for them. And just before he could do it, they start to complain and tell him that he's insufficient and he's just not taking care of what they expected him to do. And if God was like you, he'd have said, oh yeah, this can wait until next week. You ain't ready. That's not what he does. Verses one through eight, we see Israel's complaint. Verses one to three, we see that it is a grievous complaint. They're 30 days into this exodus. You remember what they've seen, the parting of the Red Sea, the 10 judgments in Egypt that they didn't have any control over and didn't bring. God just did that out of heaven. That's just what he did. Brings them out. Entices the Egyptian army out drowns them all in the Red Sea Three days later they begin to complain and then they had something of a reasonable complaint. They had no water God brings them to a well the water is not drinkable and in that situation he proves to them that he is the one that can heal Them and provide what they need. I am Yahweh your healer. I'm I'm Yahweh Rafa. I He had Moses throw a stick in the water and it made the water not just drinkable, but sweet. Then he brings them to Elam where there are 12 springs of water and there's enough sustenance and enough water there that they camp there. Here we are just several days after that, 30 days after they left on the 15th of Nisan. This is the 15th of the following month. This is 30 days. And the whole congregation of Israel. the sons of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness. Look at what they say in verse three. Would that we had died by the hand of Yahweh in the land of Egypt. I wish it would have been better for us to die there because at least there we would have died a quick death. If Yahweh would have killed us there, what they're accusing God of here and accusing Moses of is not letting them die in Egypt, bringing them out to starve them to death. We would have rather be there and die in one of the judgments or to die at the hand of Pharaoh. Or if God would have just snuffed us out, it would have been better to die there than to die here this way. Now that's a very negative view for them to have taken of God. That's what makes this such a grievous complaint. They're accusing God of not having the capacity or the desire or the thoughtfulness and the forethought to have prepared for this. He's brought them out here and he can't handle them and now they're going to starve to death and you should have just left us alone where we were. Realize how selective their memory is. What they remember of their slavery was pots of meat and bread to the full. Now, that's their complaint. We sat by pots of meat and we had bread to the full. You're gonna see that coming from Yahweh back to them in what Moses describes to them. And Moses is scolding them when he says this to them. You'll see in a moment. That grievous complaint was met with a gracious comeback. Look at verse four. Then Yahweh said to Moses, Now, if you were going to fill in the gap after what I've just told you, and we spent more time than that looking at it last week, if I gave you all of the context of what verses one through three tell us in this grievous complaint from Israel, and then I threw these five words at you, then Yahweh said, and fill in the blank, I wonder what your response would be, not knowing exactly what is about to happen, which you are already privy to, but if this were the first time that you were reading this, Or if you were sharing this with someone on a bus ride somewhere, or on an airplane, or in some other context, and you said, then Yahweh said, what do you think would be on the mind of the person that hears how these people responded to their rescuer? Then Yahweh said, I'm going to rain fire from heaven. Or then Yahweh said, hey Moses, go stand over there. Go over there. Why? You don't want to know? Just go do what I said. Go wait over there. Go get the cleft of the rock. I got some business to tend to here. That's what you or I would have done. You want meat to the full? I'm going to unleash the wolves on you, and you're going to be meat to the full, and I'm starting over. That's what you and I would have done. And it would have been, from our perspective, really from God's perspective, would he have been justified in doing that? Oh, yeah, he would have been justified in doing that. But he doesn't. Look at what he says. Look at the grace. Look at the unmerited favor. patient tenderness of Yahweh here behold I will reign again that's another one of those fill-in-the-blank rain what fire and brimstone no I will reign bread from heaven for you now we have some arguments here about what's the best bread if you come from Texas is Miss Baird's if you're from Mississippi it's bunny bread you're from South Louisiana typically it's Evangeline made If you ask me, is Pepperidge Farm 15-grain wheat bread, there's nothing better on the planet. It's almost as good as Lambus bread. But still, none of that is bread from heaven. But even when we think about bread, bread is something that we eat in conjunction with something else. I mean, we talk about Stacy's bread. I mentioned this morning, Stacy hadn't made me bread in a while. It is delicious. And it's even better when they make that little honey butter to put on it. You just can't make enough of it to fill me up. But even that is still not sufficient to live on. But bread from heaven? I know what you're thinking. It would have been like a perfectly crisp Eggo waffle falling out of heaven. Oh, what can you do with that? You can have chicken and waffles or lamb and waffles and whatever else they had, venison and waffle. I don't know what they had to eat out there. Camel and waffle doesn't sound really good. I will rain bread from heaven, heavenly sustenance. Okay, you remember the pots of meat and you ate bread to the full. Yahweh says, I'm gonna rain bread from heaven for you. Now you know what it takes to make bread? I don't know how many of you make bread, but it's not a quick process. And we're people that want a quick process. We don't want popcorn, we want microwave popcorn. We don't want five minutes of this, we want a minute and 42 seconds of staring in that window watching that bag inflate. We want popcorn right now, we want our grits right now. We don't want slow food, we want fast food. When you go to a drive-thru, now they've got a clock that tells you how long you've been in line. I don't want to be here 15 minutes, I want to be here a minute and 15 seconds and have my stuff and get out of here. Well, baking bread is not fast. And it would have been even less quick in this day, in the day and age that we're looking at here. Imagine the hassle of traveling in a tent and having to make bread. You've got to build an oven and get the oven hot to bake the bread after you've done all of the precursory things that go along with making bread. This was laborious. These people are spending all of their time working just to have food to eat every day. We don't understand that either because we go to Walmart With a small mortgage loan to buy groceries every week, if we want to get a basket full anymore, it's unbelievable. But we go, we buy a week's worth of groceries, throw them in the refrigerator, put them in the freezer. I've been wondering lately, how in the world did people survive without a freezer? They had their ways, but they didn't have as, they didn't eat as well as we do today. but they didn't have the capacity. These people certainly would not have had that capacity. They're working all of the time just to eat. Well, all of the things that used to consume an agrarian economy are not even concerns for us because when we need it, we go to the store. I went to the store three or four times yesterday. Do a little project at the house. One time I got some supplies for the project I was working on. I forgot some pieces. I went back again and got some more pieces. And in between there, I went to the store and we bought some food. And when I was done, I'm working on a project. Elizabeth needs to go. So I got to go to the store to get the rest of the stuff for what we're going to eat for supper. OK. Not a big problem. Didn't take a lot of time. These people didn't have that capacity. We've got time to do leisurely things and work on projects. We can do that because the provision of sustenance for us today is easy. It was not easy for them. Somebody had to work. Somebody had to grow the crops. Somebody had to harvest the crops. Well, there's somebody growing and harvesting crops, but there's nobody in this room. We go and buy it. might have a little garden at the house, but even the people that have big gardens here, they don't live exclusively off of their garden. It's not, it's still not even that big. So what these people have been doing is they have been working themselves to the bone just to be able to eat every day. And now they are out of provision to be able to do that. And they grumble against Moses and Aaron. As we'll see in a moment, it's not grumbling against Moses and Aaron. And Moses is wise to put this into context. You're complaining to me, but you're not complaining about me. They complained to Moses. And then Yahweh said to Moses, well, why would Yahweh say to Moses? Because he knows who they're actually complaining about. And he said, I'm going to rain bread from heaven for you. And the people will go out and gather a day's portion every day. They're going to go out and get enough for the day in the morning. I'm going to go out one time. Be like going to the store, except you don't leave the house. You go outside and scoop it up out of the yard. The rabbi said that this, this, that manna was, was such a special thing that even when you scooped it off the ground, no dirt came with it. The dirt didn't cling to it. You just scooped it up. You didn't because I've always thought about that. Well, it's on the ground. And you know, when you're eating something and you get a little piece of grit in what you're eating, you know, sometimes it might be a piece of bone, sometimes it's crunch, you don't know if it's a piece of sand or some dirt, and you're kind of repulsed by that. And I thought about it. Well, every day they have to go out in a desert and scrape this stuff up. How do they keep the dirt out of it? I've always wondered that. Well, the rabbis had a solution for it. It was such a miraculous thing that the dirt wouldn't even cling to it. You just scoop it up, bring it in the house, there was no dirt in it. That may or may not be true, but it is bread from heaven. It's not bread from Evangeline made bakery down there in Franklin or wherever they make it. Probably not in Franklin, but boy, it sounds like it would be. This is bread from heaven. Go out and gather a day's portion every day. Not tomorrow. I'm going to provide it and then we'll see what happens after that. No, every day. Okay, you grumble against me. This grievous complaint is met with this gracious comeback, his response to it. It's a response of grace, the patience of God. Man, it's hard to be patient even with your kids. I don't know if it's any different with grandkids. I hear conflicting reports from people sometimes. It's different with grandkids. Okay, but they're still kids and they still got half my DNA. Do you have more patience with them? Are you just too tired to deal with it? People look at me and say, holy cow, you've got eight kids. You must have a lot of patience. Nope. I just have a lot of opportunity to exercise, but I still don't have a lot of it. But God does. God's patience is. It's unbelievable. That's why the word behold is used so often in describing what he's going to do. Behold you won't believe what I'm about to do Moses and you won't believe it not because it's so far above your Capacity to accomplish you won't believe it because it's not at all what you expect The rain bread from heaven they will go out every day and gather a day's portion This is important these last two clauses in verse 4 I that I may test them." Remember, he is taking these people that do not know him even by name. They know him by reputation of what happened to other people that came before them, but he's revealing himself to them here. And he said, I'm going to test them whether or not they will walk in my law. Remember, I told you he's brought them out of Egypt not to be just freed from Egypt and to run amok and just have this free in Christ life just to go and live any way they see fit. No, he has brought them out of Egypt so that they might live a life that is profitable for them and honorable to their God. And in order for that to happen, there has to be some testing and some proving. There are some tests that they have to go through He says, I'm going to test them whether or not they will walk in my law. He's giving them yet another reason to serve him, just like he did back when he provided them water. Verse 25 of chapter 15, it said, he tested them and he said, if you will earnestly listen to the voice of Yahweh, your God, and do what is right in his sight, give ear to his commandments, keep all of his statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you that I put on the Egyptians, for I, Yahweh, am your healer. If you will do what I tell you to do, then this is what I will do for you. Same concept here in verse four of chapter 16, I will test them whether or not they will walk in my law. He's gonna give them manna and there's gonna be a test involved in it. We get an idea of what that test is in verse five. Now it will be on the sixth day. They shall prepare what they bring in and it will be twice as much as they gather daily. These people have never heard of a Sabbath day's rest. As I told you, these people are coming out of slavery. They wouldn't have known what a day of rest was at all. They have worked every day, all day, every day of their life. Didn't get holidays off, didn't get two weeks paid vacation, didn't get eight hours of PTO every paycheck. They didn't get any of that. But he's gonna make a specific provision for them every day. Now he hadn't got into all of the specifics that we're gonna get into as we come into verses nine and and 12 and 16 here as we come down and he's going to give some some more specifics about this to them but what he starts off with here is that on the sixth day you're going to take up twice as much as every other day this is going to be part of his law Now he doesn't start here with, have no other gods before him, doesn't start with you will not have any graven image before me. He doesn't say, start with, you will not take my name in vain. He starts with, you need to understand that there is a Sabbath that I expect you to keep and to keep it holy. It is that important that he begins, even here he is foreshadowing it. I know I'm reading ahead a little bit, but that's what he's talking about in verse five. I'm going to test them to see if they will walk in my law. I'm going to give them a They're going to go out and gather a day's portion every day. And on the sixth day, they're going to gather twice as much as they do every other day. Now you'll see toward the end of this particular section in verse 20 that they didn't listen. I don't know how many days into this they were by the time you get to verse 20, but this is, I was trying to figure out a way to break my outline up to have meat-headed people as the last heading on the, but I couldn't work it out. So I've got something else that suffices, but meathead is about the best description of what verse 20 describes. He's gonna test them to see if they're gonna pay attention. Then verse, verses six through eight in response to this grievous complaint, Israel complains, and we see this gracious comeback. This is what he tells him he's going to do. And then we see this glorious catering. Now, you know what a caterer does. Yeah, they rob your bank account. Yeah, they do that too. Talk to somebody recently said they had a thing catered at their, uh, at a job in a plant in the Beaumont area. He told me they charged him $25 a head to feed a bunch of oil field hands. I don't even know. I don't know what they fed them, but a caterer comes in and they just provide everything. What do you do when it's time to eat? You do what? You just go and eat. That's what God's going to do for these people. When it's time to eat, they don't have to go out and find something. They don't have to go out and catch an animal. They don't have to go out and find something that they can harvest and grind to make bread. He's about to provide for them everything that they need right outside their front door. It's like having it delivered every day to them. This is catering Yahweh style. Look at verse six. Moses goes and speaks to them as Yahweh has spoken to him in verses four and five, Moses and Aaron go to the people that said to the sons of Israel at evening, you will know that Yahweh has brought you out of the land of Egypt. What did they said already? We would, that we would have died there at the hand of Yahweh in Egypt because you brought us out here to die. And Moses says, you're going to know at evening that it's Yahweh that brought you here and not me. And in the morning, you will see the glory of Yahweh. He's telling them, tonight, this evening, you're going to see, and tomorrow morning, you're going to see. And it's going to be every evening and every morning after that. You're going to know. You will never have a legitimate capacity to question who brought you out ever again. You will know that it's Yahweh that brought you out of Egypt. You will know who your rescuer is and who it is that is walking with you through this, who is providing for you. You're gonna come to have a greater understanding of who he is. You're gonna know of his patience and his provision and his capacity to take care of you. Then he says this. The evening you'll know that he brought you out, in the morning you will see the glory of Yahweh. He describes what we now know of as manna, as the glory of Yahweh. Can you imagine? They go out every day and it's just there. They can't explain how it got there. They can't explain where it goes. They can't even explain what it is, except to say that it's bred from heaven. And it's there every day. Every day. Every day. You walk outside and here is a manifestation of the glory of Yahweh on the ground at your feet. Every day. Verse seven, you will see the glory of Yahweh for he hears your grumblings against Yahweh. Uh-oh. Moses said, hey, you're not griping against me. And it's not that Moses is telling him, hey, get off my back. Moses is saying, hey, you're crossing a line with this God. He's warning these people. We see a humility and a patience out of Moses as well because you and I probably wouldn't have handled it this way either. Hey, he heard your complaining. You complained to me hoping that he would hear. And I'm telling you, he did hear. And he's not happy about it, as you might imagine. He hears your grumblings against him. And what are we that you grumble against us? He said, I can't do any of this anyway. I didn't do this. You know I didn't do all of this. You know the one that gets the credit for that. People sometimes come to me and thank me for this, that or the other. Hey, there's only one that gets credit for any good that comes out of my life. And it's not my wife, it's the Lord. Yeah, I was a part of it. Yes, I had to, there were things that I had to do to, quote, participate in it, but this is what the Lord has done. There was none of this that I could do were it not for the Lord. That's what Moses is telling these people here. There is one that receives the glory for this, there is one that receives the credit for this, and he is the one that you're blaming. You need to tighten up. Verse eight, still describing this glorious catering. gives a little better description of it, clear for these people. You're going to see, you're going to know in the evening that Yahweh has brought you out of the land of Egypt and in the morning you will see the glory of Yahweh. This will happen, verse 8, when Yahweh gives you meat to eat in the evening and bread to full in the morning. What was their complaint? We would rather have died in Egypt where we had pots of meat and we ate bread to the full. Moses said, OK, that's what you want. You're about to see you're not going to just have pots of meat. You're going to have delicacies of meat and you're going to have bread from heaven. He will give you meat to eat in the evening and bread to the full in the morning for Yahweh hears your grumblings, which you grumble against him. Friends, this continues to point to the gracious patience of God. The unmerited favor that continues to come in such a patient way, even when that grace has not only been abused, it's been disregarded. And what does he do? He just pours on more. Because that's the kind of God that he is. He is a God like no other. What is God like? He's not like anything. God is holy. He is indescribable. Look at the provision that he makes for these worthless people. These are people as worthless as you and I are. He has heard the grumblings, which you grumble against him. And what are we? Your grumblings are not against us, but against Yahweh. Quit trying to trick him and to trick yourself. Maybe he's telling this to the elders of the people, whoever it is that's starting this. Somebody has to be the rabble that starts this kind of grumbling. This isn't just spontaneous. This begins and it surges through the people. Somebody is starting this and he's telling them, listen, when they come to you with this baloney, remember, it's not me, it's him that you're complaining against. You want to get upset with what goes on in the church, you need to ask yourself, is what's going on in the church, is the direction that the elders are leading this church a biblical direction or is it a personal direction? Because if I don't like what they're doing personally, that's one thing. But if I've got a problem with what they're doing that is scriptural and biblical, the problem lies with me. being upset with God, not being upset with the leadership of the church. The same thing with Moses. You're upset with what Yahweh is doing and you're trying to blame me, but he doesn't see it that way. He knows that you're complaining against him and you need to tighten up. And even though you griped against him and accused him, listen, they've accused God of bringing him to the wilderness to kill him by hunger. God brought us here to starve us to death is what they said to Moses. And Moses says, I know it, and he knows it, and you know it, and you need to cut this out. He's warning these people. Sometimes we need a warning. Sometimes we need an admonition. Israel's complaint is met with Yahweh's response in verses 9 to 12. In verse 9, we see a sobering summons, a sobering summons. Have you ever been subpoenaed as a witness in a court case? I know most of you have probably received a subpoena for jury duty. That's irritating enough. But to be subpoenaed in a court case means that you've got to be a witness in that court case. Now you've got to go deal with some attorneys, and some of them are legitimate. Some of them are underhanded. Some of them are trying to cheat the others out of something. They each have their respective client to represent, and you kind of have the balance. I wonder if you've ever received a summons to, as a defendant in a case. I have, it wasn't a lot of fun, I didn't enjoy it. I made the most of it. The shyster attorneys on the other side of that court did not have an enjoyable time with me. And ultimately they didn't enjoy it at all because the judge ruled for the, for what was just in the case. It was a Morris Bard attorney, by the way. case you were wondering. She didn't look like Morris Bart though. It's funny and she was so sweet at the deposition and just asking questions and and flirting with the other attorney and and when we got into the courtroom she took that mask off and she put on her Viper mask and it was it was interesting. But when I received that summons, I wasn't overly excited about it. I really didn't anticipate it. It kind of came out of the blue. It had been months since the lady had run me off the road and all of the things that went on with that. So when I got the summons, it was kind of a shock. These people receive a summons from the judge of all the earth, not judge so-and-so at the Opelousas City Courthouse or wherever it was. If you received a summons to a court case at the Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., that would be very unnerving for you, but these people received a summons from the Creator. You come and stand before me. We talked a little bit about standing before the Lord this morning in our Morning service, what it is to stand before the Lord. That judge on that throne is going to convene court and heaven and earth will pass away. That is a picture of the serious nature of it. There is nothing else happening except what that judge has to say. And this judge has summoned these people, these grumblers. Moses said, you grumbled against God and not me. And the next thing that comes out of his mouth in verse nine, Moses says to Aaron, say to all the congregation of the sons of Israel, come near before Yahweh for he has heard your grumblings. Uh-oh. Never done something you hoped your parents wouldn't find out and your dad came home and found out about it and sent your sibling to come get you and said, hey boy, daddy wants you. What? Daddy said, come see. My goose is cooked. Take that, multiply it by infinity. That's what these people would experience when they heard this. Your grumblings are not against us. Your grumbling, your complaint, your accusations are against Yahweh. The next thing out of his mouth is this sobering summons in verse nine. Say to all the congregation of the sons of Israel, come near before Yahweh, for he has heard your grumblings. There are different reasons that you might call your children close to you. I had one come to me before church today and said, Daddy, how do I look? Oh, you look beautiful. Come here. Come here. Come close. Give me a hug. There are other times where you have to have a conversation with somebody and you pull them real close to you because you want them to grasp what you're telling them. Come here. Listen to me. Yeah, grab them by the shirt. Pull them up close. Hey, boy. You need to hear what I'm telling you. You need to put that away, put that away, pay attention. This is important. You come and pay attention. Come near, come close to me. Come near to Yahweh. I can tell you whatever is about to be said, these people are not gonna miss. Verse 10, that sobering summons. is met by a sobering or met with a sobering sight. These people are being pulled out of the irritation that they have wallowed in and the grumbling that they have wallowed in, this fleshly self-determination that they have set for themselves. They are wallowing in their irritation and their sinful behavior. And now they've been, it's as though somebody has slapped sense back into them and said, hey, pay attention. You're meeting with God right now. Verse 10, now it happened as Aaron spoke. Moses told Aaron, go say to these people, as Aaron spoke to the whole congregation of the sons of Israel, they turned toward the wilderness. They turned out toward the wilderness where there was nothing to block their view. They didn't turn toward the mountains. They turned to the open space. And behold, don't ever miss that word. When I was a kid, I thought that was just an old English word, behold, and it meant to look. No, this is a term of exclamation. You need to pay attention. Behold. This is a term of unbelievability. Now, we've already read about the pillar of God's presence. It was a pillar of fire at night and a pillar of cloud by day. and that they see this pillar as the representation of the presence of God with them. They turn, and this cloud that has been there this whole time, and as we'll see as we progress into Exodus, what's been happening is that when they travel, they'll travel a day's journey, eight or 10, 12 miles, whatever it is they travel in a day, and they set up camp. They have to set up in a certain arrangement with one tent in the middle And Moses's tent is up there and that this pillar would come and set over Moses's tent and God would meet with Moses. They've been following this thing around. They are familiar with the, they've had 30 days of familiarity with this pillar of cloud by day and fire by night. But today they see something a little different in it. In case the new has worn off of the. This inexplicable cloud that follows them around that I don't really think it changed at night. I just think that the night allowed it to show the iridescent light that it was producing at all times. It was enough of a cloud in the daytime to block the sun, to give them shade. And it was enough of a light at night to give them light at night. So that you imagine having the, we have light everywhere we go. I mean, you're going to leave church after dark around here and we've got these big floodlights. You can see your car. Good. You have lights at your house. You drive up. I've got lights on under our carport. Now, when we get home, the lights are there. I can see everything. I'll pull in. You go outside after a hurricane or some storm that knocks all of the electricity out for blocks around your house to see how dark it is. We were going home one night years ago when we lived on North end of town. And about halfway to our house, there was a big blue flash in the sky and everything went immediately pitch dark. The only light there was a light coming from the headlights of my car. There were no other cars around. I was, I was amazed at how dark it got. We are so accustomed to having light that when, when it's really dark, man, it's a little unnerving. I don't like the dark already, but that kind of dark. You imagine in a world where there is no light, like we are accustomed to, to have a light at night. They've got this nightlight. They're able to function outside. Just the provision and the depiction of the presence of God. Cloud in the day, fire at night. Verse 10. They turned toward the wilderness and behold, the glory of Yahweh appeared in the cloud. Now every time you see a depiction of the glory of God, when he depicts himself, it is in this unapproachable light that creates and sheds the light of terror on all that behold it. These people that back in verse two and three, they're grumbling against Moses and Aaron and accusing God of starving them to death are now as close as a sinful man can be to being face to face with God. This is a sobering sight. He had their full undivided attention. There was no grumbling. There would have been gasps of amazement, shock. The children would have been clinging to their mother. There wouldn't have been any tomfoolery at all. These people would have been locked into what they're seeing now. This has gone from everybody upset and, yeah, we're going to do something, to now it is absolute silence because they realize we have absolutely offended this guy. And what does he do? They don't have any idea. They know that Moses has just told them that this evening, you're going to see that Yahweh has brought you out of the land of Egypt. And in the morning, you're going to see the glory of God. Aaron, you get them together because God's got a message for him right now. Up until now, Moses has been the messenger. Kind of like a reference sending your kid to to get another kid in your house. You ever do that, and the other child comes back and said, they said no, said they're not coming, or they had some snarky remark, and you go march in that room, it's a whole different reaction in it. I tell my children, when I send someone to get you, they've come with my authority, and they've told you to be here, and if you don't listen to what they tell you, the rider on a pale horse is coming. You just get ready. You get yourself over here when I say it. That is absolute and utter disrespect to me when you do that, and we're not having it in this house. Moses is God's messenger. And in their minds, they've worked up the courage, all of us, yeah, we're all upset, all of the sons of Israel, Moses, all of us are upset and there's just you to blame. Okay. You get to talk to the one that's actually in charge here in verse 10. Moses go stand over there. I'll handle this What happens next Is not what anybody expected? They know that Moses told him they're gonna realize that Yahweh brought him from Egypt and they're gonna see the glory of Yahweh They have no idea what that means And now they have to stand before him in this sight of sheer terror. If ever they were sober-minded, this is the moment. This is the one that destroyed Egypt and rescued us from Egypt. This is the one that parted the Red Sea and destroyed the army of Egypt in an instant. This is the one that we have now offended. And uh-oh, uh-oh. The sobering summons in this sobering site. Get their undivided attention so that they can be informed. Of what I've described as a sobering supply. It's sobering because what they're going to see is the grace and patience of God and what he's about to tell them he's going to do for them. Because they have no idea that there is any that there is any God that they've ever known of that has the capacity to be this gracious to them. The gods that the Egyptians served were capricious, they were man-made, they were angry all the time, and they did very capricious, mean-spirited things to get even with people. This is all that they know of. And now they're standing before the glory of God in the cloud. It's not just the cloud, the glory of God has appeared in the cloud. He has their undivided attention. And then he speaks to Moses. He speaks to Moses in front of the people, which I think this makes it pretty clear that they weren't always privy to what God said to Moses until Moses told them. But God's given them a little bit of an insight into how this works. He's gonna speak to Moses in front of the people. This is kind of the reverse of what the people have been doing. They've been speaking to Moses in front of Yahweh and telling Moses, well, you make sure Yahweh knows. You ever been around people like that? People are having an argument and a married couple or a couple of friends are having an argument and you just happen to be there. And they look at you and say, would you tell her that I said this? Oh, well, you tell her back that I said this. God's put them in the same position that they've put themselves in with Moses. Okay, you spoke to Moses to tell me? I heard every word of it. You're now gonna hear every word that I say to Moses. These people have no idea what's about to happen. But what they're gonna see is that they never would have dreamt of a God that is this patient and gracious. In the presence of the people, Yahweh spoke to Moses. He says to Moses what Moses has already said to the people your grumbling is against him and not me Yahweh says to Moses I have heard the grumblings of the sons of Israel Speak to them saying You know what they're thinking our goose is cooked Miriam is nice knowing you Maybe I'll see you in heaven. I don't know. I don't know what's coming after this, but we're done. It's been a nice run. Speak to them saying, another one of these fill in the blanks, of all of the myriad of things that he could have had to say and would have been justified in saying, this is what he says to them. He tells them what he is the gracious, sobering supply that he's about to make for them. At twilight you shall eat meat and in the morning you shall be filled with bread so that you will know that I am Yahweh your God. Wow, I just can't get over that. We read this glibly and run past it. With all that they've just done to him, with all that he could have done to these people, righteously, justifiably, Unquestionably. He says, I am going to supply for you more than you ever would have asked for. Now, they could have asked for this and could have gotten this or even better. This is the provision he makes for them when they grumble. Imagine what he would have given them if they would have come and asked for it. Friends, we serve a gracious God who gives favor to the unworthy. He did then, he does today. He is a patient God who is willing to take his time and to really humble himself for what is the betterment of his people. He is still patient with you and I today. How long does it take you and I today to get through our heads what he's trying to teach us? About as long as it took these people. The difference between your life and mine is the difference that the Holy Spirit of God makes. So it's the difference between how I react to what God is doing and how they reacted to what God is doing. It's not a difference that I made. It's the difference that he makes. It's the difference that he gets credit for. But he's still this same gracious, patient, supplying God who provides all of our needs even when we complain. I don't deserve this. Yeah, you're right. You deserve far worse than whatever this is in the statement that you made. I'll tell you what you don't deserve. You don't deserve God to give you a second look. And if you are a believer in Jesus Christ here tonight, what he has given to you is his very best. He only had one, and he gave him up for you. We're starting to get glimpses of that. The Israeli people here are starting to get glimpses of that. Father, thank you for your word that so clearly tells us who you are. Not who you were, but who you are. Lord, as we reflect on what happened in the lives of these Israelis and what happened in your ministry to them, we see ourselves here. Lord, we are filled with regret for how we live and conduct our lives at various and sundry points and produce things that are unacceptable to you. things that come out of our lives and out of our mouths, our complaints, our grumblings, our dissatisfaction with you and what you have provided. Lord, we take great comfort that you are as patient today as you were then. Pray that that patience that we all experience from you will produce in us a harvest of righteousness and a greater desire to serve you in this life. Try with all the more might to become more of who you have called us to be. I pray that you will take our time here this night and use it in that endeavor. May our lives never be the same. Pray it in our Lord Jesus's name. Amen.