The Manna

… 75 St. Louis Church, St. Louis, Mississippi, Missouri, Missouri, Mississippi, Missouri, Mississippi, Mississippi, Missouri, Mississippi, Missouri, Christ the Lord. O say can you see, by the dawn's early light, What so proudly we hailed at the twilight's last gleaming? Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight, O'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming? Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight, O'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming? O'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming? And it came to pass in the evening that quails came up and covered the camp, and in the morning the dew lay round the camp. And when the dew that lay round it was gone up, behold, on the face of the wilderness there was something fine, granular, fine as hoarfrost on the ground. And the children of Israel saw it and said to one another, What is it? For they did not know what it was. And Moses said to them, This is the bread which Jehovah has given you to eat. This is the thing which Jehovah has commanded, Gather of it every man according to what he can eat. And Omer, a pole, according to the number of your persons, he shall take every man for those that are in his tent. And the children of Israel did so, and gathered some much, some little. And they measured with the Omer, then he that gathered much had nothing over, and he that gathered little wanted nothing. They had gathered every man according to the measure of his eating. And Moses said to them, Let no man leave any of it until the morning. But they did not hearken unto Moses, and some left of it until the morning. Then worms bred in it, and it stank. And Moses was wrath with them, and they gathered it every morning, every man, as much as he could eat. And when the sun became hot, it melted. Now I would like to continue in verse 32. And Moses said, This is the thing which Jehovah has commanded, Fill an Omer of it to be kept for your generations, that they may see the bread that I gave you to eat in the wilderness, when I brought you out of the land of Egypt. And Moses said to Aaron, Take a pot, and put in it an Omer full of manna, and deposit it before Jehovah to be kept for your generations. And as Jehovah had commanded Moses, so Aaron deposited it before the testimony to be kept. And the children of Israel ate the manna forty years, until they came into an inhabited land. They ate the manna until they came to the borders of the land of Canaan. Now an Omer is the tenth part of an Ifa. In taking up this, as I think, well known portion of scripture, the thought before in my heart was to present a little bit of our Lord Jesus tonight. Because as everyone I think, or even the youngest one well knows, the manna is that what represents the food of the people of God during their walk through the wilderness. And it was not a natural food. It was not the food, and we can easily understand what that means, as it was for the earthly people of God, the people of Israel, so it is for the heavenly people of God, His assembly. This food was not, while they went through the wilderness, was not of an earthly origin. And that is of a very great importance, because we all know that some people try to teach us that this manna was some resin coming from certain trees in the wilderness. So it would have been of a natural origin. But I think if we consider that this people of Israel embraced at least two to three million persons when they went out of Egypt, there should have been whole forests of trees in the land which is described as a barren wilderness. It was not of a natural origin. God said in chapter 16, verse 4, Then said Jehovah to Moses, Behold, I will rain bread from heaven. Bread from heaven, that is the thing. It had not an earthly, natural origin, just as the food for us, beloved, that which sustains us here on earth, and that is a very serious thing, does not have an earthly and natural origin. Naturally our bodies have to be kept, that's one thing, but if we speak about our spiritual lives, what sustains you and me here on earth? Let's think of what we read, that is our spiritual food. If we read, if we feed us spiritually with the things here from earth, the Egyptian things, we know what the people of Israel thought of that and what God's thoughts about this Egyptian food were. Now that this spiritual food speaks of the Lord Jesus, I would like to show from some portions in the New Testament, where we find, for example, firstly in 1 Corinthians 10, one explanation, and I would like to turn to 1 Corinthians 10, verse 1. For I would not have you ignorant, brethren, that all our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. Spiritual food. Now this could astonish one if one thinks of the fact that with the people of Israel it was not literally spiritual food, they had to feed their bodies by it, and yet the New Testament says they ate spiritual food. Now I think one explanation, and this is the word of God, and the word of God is true, there is no doubt about that. Now the question is, what does Paul mean when he says they ate spiritual food? Now I think one explanation has been given already, that its origin was supernatural. It was not of an earthly origin, God reigned this bread from heaven. And this, what we read in Exodus 16, verse 4, is not the only place, I only mention, we cannot turn to that, a passage in Nehemiah chapter 9, where Nehemiah says that they got bread from heaven, and Psalm 78, where we read that he gave bread or corn from heaven, and the next verse, 24 or 25 it is, he says that they had bread of the strong men, of the strong men, meat of the strong ones. Now who were these strong ones? The Sceptre Gint translates the strong ones by angels. This was the heavenly food, and the Sceptre Gint, this Greek translation of the Bible, says this was the food of angels. God gave it to his earthly people to sustain it 40 years in a wonderful and almost unexplained, unexplicable way through this desert to lead it in his country which he had promised to his people, a spiritual food. It had a supernatural origin, and the second thing is that it spoke of the Lord Jesus. It had a spiritual meaning. It was not only food for the bodily needs of his earthly people, no, that was one thing, but it spoke, it had the meaning, it carried in it the meaning, a spiritual meaning, namely the Lord Jesus. And I think if we now can turn to another chapter, a very well-known chapter in the Gospel of John, we will find that this is entirely confirmed. In the Gospel of John, we read in chapter 6 that 5,000 men are fed by the Lord Jesus. Here on earth they were fed, only one of the two feedings of the people is reported in John's Gospel because John only reports, as far as I can see, seven, not wonders, but seven tokens, seven signs, and they were sufficient to prove that the Lord Jesus was the Son of God. These have been written that he believed that Jesus is the Son of God. He did many more signs, but only seven were written down, and one of them was the feeding of the multitude of 5,000, and afterwards the people of the two tribes of Judah went after the Lord, and we know that in chapter 6 he says they follow him, and he says to them, whom seek ye? And then the people answers in verse 20, in verse 30, they said therefore to him, what sign then doest thou that we may see and believe thee? What dost thou work, our fathers, at the manor in the wilderness? As it is written, he gave them bread out of heaven to eat. Jesus therefore said to them, verily, verily, I say to you, it is not Moses that has given you the bread out of heaven, but my Father gives you the true bread out of heaven, for the bread of God is he who comes down out of heaven and gives life to the world. Now here we have the plain and clear explanation of what the manor means. Sometimes it is said that the manor is a sign or a type of the word of God, and it is partly true, but it is not the full truth. The full truth is that the word of God in so far is the manor as it reveals as the true manor, the Son of God, but the true manor is the Son of God, he who came down from heaven. Exactly in the same manner we might say as the manor came down from heaven, sent down from God for the sustenance of his earthly people during their path through the wilderness. So the Lord came down not to give earthly life, but to give the eternal life. He is the man come down from heaven to give life to lost men and to sustain his people here on earth. And we see here that something comes in which in the Old Testament could not be expressed in the type of the manor, namely that giving of life, but the Lord continues in this chapter here and says that this has to come first, before you can eat the manor, you have to get life. And this is also given by himself. In this chapter it is very interesting, we find ten times mentioned out of heaven. But seven times the Lord speaks of himself, three times he speaks of the manor which came from heaven, generally. But seven times he says I am the one who came down from heaven to earth to give life and to give sustenance to lost men and to those who by faith in me, and this is what I want to point out in the end of the chapter, by appropriating my work for you to give them life and then to sustain them. You cannot, I don't know if anybody is here who has not the knowledge of having the life of God, who has not the knowledge that he was a lost sinner and was dead in sins and has to come to the Lord Jesus to get life. I don't know, maybe there is somebody here. Before you can eat the manor, you must eat the flesh and the blood of the Son of God. Not by eating anything literally, nor by taking the Lord's supper as it is sometimes thought that we eat the flesh and drink the blood of the Lord Jesus when we take the Lord's supper. This is only the outward sign and outward expression of something which we have inwardly done. But that comes first and I want to just to point to this in John 6 verse 53, that this comes first and this is necessary before we can feed on the manor. In verse 53 the Lord says, Jesus therefore said to them, verily, verily, I say unto you unless ye shall have eaten the flesh of the Son of Man and drunk his blood, ye have no life in yourselves. This has to go before we can eat the manor. We have to eat the flesh, or better rather as it says here and it is very well translated, we have to have eaten once and for all the flesh of the Son of God and the blood, the flesh and the blood of the Son of God. That means that we have to come to him as seeing that we have no life but we heard he on the cross of Calvary gave his life that we who were dead in trespasses and sins might receive life from him and through him and by him. And that is meant by these words to have eaten and the tense which is used here means that it is done once and for all to have eaten, to have accepted and appropriated spiritually taken into my being that the Lord gave his flesh on the cross and his blood for my life. And if anybody should be here who has not done this, the Lord says now is the time, now you can do that. There may come a day where it is too late. But once you have done this and have received this wonderful life and belong to the people of God, now then he says, goes on in verse 54, he that eats my flesh and drinks my blood has life eternal. Now as the footnote of the Darby translation very well says, now it is not the question of doing something once or more times, now is it a question of being characterized by eating. The eater and drinker, he who does this day by day feeds on the Lord Jesus. He has life eternal, he is the one who remains in this unlosable and unchangeable state of being livingly connected with him who is the bread of life. But we see clearly here two stages and only the second can be actually compared with what the manna expressed, namely that we feed daily on the Lord as our manna. And it is clear, very important that at the end of our chapter in Exodus 16 we have read that they ate the manna in the desert, in the wilderness until they came to the border of an inhabited land. The moment they had crossed Jordan, had identified themselves with the death and resurrection of the Lord and had entered into Canaan a type of our real and true heavenly blessings. Mind you here in the wilderness there were no blessings for Israel and there are no Christian blessings here on earth. There are blessings but no Christian blessings. If we have freedom as we can come together now and if we have drink and food, if we have health, these are all blessings. If we have a good and nice family we can thank God for it. Would we do it? We did it more. But these are not special Christian blessings. God gives these blessings to everybody more or less. And the spiritual blessings, beloved ones, are not found here in this desert. They are not found in Egypt out of which we have been brought. They are not found in our earthly circumstances here in the desert. They are found in Canaan's country in the spiritual realms of the heavenly places in Christ. And there the food was another food. There the food was the roast corn of the land of Canaan. But until they came there and we know that we are in both these situations. We are in the desert as to our outward circumstances and we have to be sustained there. And that is what the manna speaks of. If we are looking at ourselves in the heavenly places we are not fed by the manna. It stops. The manna is Christ on earth as man on earth as the one who has entered into our circumstances and can understand and help and feed us in these earthly circumstances. That is the manna. When we come into the heavenly places we don't need a man on earth. We need a man in glory to strengthen us as I find it in Colossians 1 that we are strengthened by the power of his glory. That's another thing. That is the power we need to fight the enemy. But here we are speaking of our pathway through this wilderness. And this world is a wilderness only for the eye of faith. Not for my flesh and not for your flesh. The flesh will always find things which it likes in this world. But for the new man this world is the wilderness. And he, the new man created after God, he needs to be fed, to be renewed by the manna. The man who came down from the glory, he came down from heaven while he never left heaven but he came down. He was at the same time here on earth as man as he was the eternal son in the bosom of the father. And as man here on earth he is our food. Now this sounds very simple. And I think yet we have often great difficulties in realizing how the Lord Jesus is our food. Israel had to, the people of Israel had to go out every day. And had to go out early in the morning. And they found it on the face of the desert. It is, that is, they found it not in this world but they found it there where they were. They didn't have to go some place and gather it. No, it was there in their circumstances. And it was a wonderful thing that it was not as we might sometimes be tempted to think that the Lord Jesus of whom, he who says of himself that no one knoweth the son than the father. That the Lord Jesus is such a, may I use the expression, tremendous person. That we never, never, never can get a full hold of him. That we never can understand and comprehend everything. And that this makes us, although we love him and know him, a little bit, makes this a little bit difficult to get a grasp of what, how we really shall feed on him. Practically, how do I do that? And I would like to show that Israel here in chapter 16 found it first in their immediate surroundings. They did not have to go to, say for example, the Tent of Meeting, although this might be a little bit strange connection. They found it there where they were, out of the tents. But the second point was that it was not something which had an outward appearance or an outward form that it was difficult to get hold of it. It is astonishing that it says twice here in verse 14, fine, granular, fine. And I've been thinking what this could mean. And I can only come to the conclusion that it meant that it was so that its form and its substance and its size was so that even the smallest child could eat it. It was nothing great which had to be broken into pieces. You needed no tools for it. It was small. You could bake it. You could do all things with it, as long as it was in accordance with God's thoughts. But it was fine and granular so that everybody could eat it, just as everybody got as much as he could eat when he looked for it, when he searched it and picked it up. So it was fine that everybody could eat it, that nobody could say, this is too heavy for me. This is too difficult for me. This food is too heavy for me. No, it was fine, granular. It is there for every one of us, beloved ones, for every one of us. And everyone can say, well, I can get as much as I want and you will never be overfed by it. And the Israelites thought that, but that was only because their eyes were set on other things. But here we see that its form and its size was so that you needed not a special preparation for it if you only went and picked it and you ate it. You could live on it. What a wonderful thing to see that such is the Lord Jesus. It is not something, he is not a person, although he is the one who fills all in all in one measure. He is so that the smallest, that the youngest baby in Christ can feed on him because the manner was fine, granular, fine. And then it was the bread. It is said in verse 15, it is the bread which Jehovah has given us to eat. Oh, what a shame it was that Israel should despise this food, that Israel should come to a point where it says, we do not want this food anymore, the bread, that which speaks of daily food and which speaks of the necessary food, that they said, we don't want this anymore, which Jehovah has given you. And food, I think we can connect at least three things with food, with feeding. One thing is, as we have said, the appropriation, the taking in of the character of the food. I am always characterized by the food I take in. If I take good food, I will be in a healthy state. And if I take bad food, which hardly occurs in our areas here, I will be in a bad health state. Look at the underdeveloped countries. These people are characterized by the food they take in. They get food, but not enough and not in the right quality. So the appropriation means that we take in the character of the food. And think of it, what it means in comparison, in connection here with the food, the manna, the bread of life, the one who came down from heaven. To feed on him means to take more and more of his character. We have it fundamentally by new birth, by the new man which we have put on. But this new man, as Ephesians and Colossians says, has to be renewed every day by feeding on the Lord Jesus. Now the second thing which is connected with food is strengthening, I would say. It is very closely connected, but strengthening is something else. It goes a little bit farther, that our power, that our strength comes from the food we eat. And not from earthly sources, not from our own flesh, but that our power, our force, our strength comes from the Lord Jesus. And the last, third thing which is also very important is fellowship. If we only think of the Lord's Supper, thereby by eating and drinking, by feeding, we express our fellowship with each other and especially with the Lord. And all these things I think we find in the manna, represented. And we are strengthened in two ways, strengthened to do our work here on earth and to go our path here on earth as the people of God did of old, but also strengthened to give worship. Because that what we take in, also God wants his share of it. And when we continue to look here, I would say, I would just point to a few points which we find in this chapter before, making the practical, not the practical explanation of how we practically take in that manna. In verse 16 it says also a very important thing, in the second part of verse 16, Ye shall take every man for those that are in his tent. How this shows the responsibility of those who have a tent. That means who have a family, who have such, have members of a family, be it a wife or children or other dependents for which he or she is responsible. And we see here that the manna had to be taken, to be picked up for those in the tent. How important that our children, if the Lord has entrusted us children, that we take in the manna for them and that we help them from their earliest days on to feed on this manna. How, what an important thing it is. Then we have not read the portion concerning the sabbath, that God for the first time in scripture mentions sabbath here. The rest of the people of God in connection with the food he gives. We cannot dwell on that because it would lead us too far from our subject, but I would like to dwell a little while or shortly on the practical explication of this manna. We have seen that it is the Lord Jesus on earth and we have seen that we might have the question, the question might arise in us, well how can I feed on this manna? We say occupy with the Lord Jesus, be occupied with the Lord Jesus, read the bible, but reading the bible and feeding on something is not exactly the same. I can read the bible and study a subject to get knowledge in it and to give, to pass this knowledge on. This will always be food for me, but food means that I appropriate it in myself, in my own being and for that I would like again to turn to the New Testament and read one verse of the gospel of Matthew and chapter 11. And I think this leads us into this subject very clearly and very, in a very concrete manna. The Lord says in Matthew 11 verse 29, after having spoken to those who are yet afar off, come to me. He says then in 29 to those who have come, take my yoke upon you and learn from me. And you shall find rest to your souls, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light. And I think that this word learn from me, that this shows us how we can take in the manna. We learn from the Lord Jesus, when we read the gospels we see his ways and the Lord says learn from me because we need it. He wouldn't have said it if we didn't need it, but we need to learn from the Lord Jesus because we are not like him in our ways. If we look back on today's work, family, life, where did we behave like the Lord Jesus? It's a very serious but also a very, very practical question. That is why the Lord says to his disciples, learn from me. Learn my ways. Learn how I am. Are we, are we, are you and I meek and lowly in heart? I must confess this is not my nature. I am not meek and I am not lowly in heart by nature. But the Lord says well that's why I say learn from me. It's a very, very practical thing to eat the manna, to be fed by the manna, to be, to appropriate this, the characters of the lowly man come down from heaven into my own life and to, to be fed by him, to be strength, to be, to appropriate him in my own life and to be strengthened by him. And this we can only do, beloved ones, by learning from him. Sometimes I hear in Germany that somebody says if he, if he's spoken to about a certain thing which he may have done or said, well this is my character. This, that's how I, that's, that's the way I am. But I don't know, I hope this does never happen here in this country, but I've often thought and sometimes said, dear brother, what you are doing is defending your old man, your old, yes, your old man. This is not the new man, the character I am. And if, if you are, if you are not behaving meek and lowly and somebody speaks to you and you say, well that's my character, you are defending and upholding and nourishing your old man. And where is the new, where is the new man? He stands back, he stands back because we have not learned from the Lord to be meek and lowly in heart and maybe because we don't care to learn. Maybe we care about other things in the assembly, knowledge as I said, to have a certain place in the meeting, but that is not the thing which character, which should characterize one of the people of God who feeds on the manna, but to become like him, to be, to appropriate him and to be changed by eating this manna into his image. It's another, another context to see him in glory. We are speaking not about seeing him in glory here, I think this is clear enough, but seeing him as the lowly man on earth as he is depicted in the Gospels, described in the Gospels. And he says learn from me. And I would turn to two other portions which are very well known, but mostly not seen in this light, but seen in the other light. I said just now that when we are fed and are strengthened, we are strengthened for two, in two directions. The one is the practical life, the strength of every day and the other to follow the Lord and the other is more for worship. And I think we have two passages in scripture, maybe more, I only think of these two, which must be looked at in these, in both of these characters, strengthening and worship. But we mostly look on them from the side of worship. First one, Philippians 2, verse 5. For, let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who, subsisting in the form of God, did not esteem it an object of rapine to be on an equality with God, but emptied himself, taking a bondman's form, taking his place in the likeness of men. And having been found in figure as a man, humbled himself, becoming obedient even unto death, and that the death of the cross. I said that this is a very well known passage and it is mostly read for worship, I dare say. I don't know how it is in this country, but in our country, where I live, but in our country, one should never say our country, your country, because we are not citizens of this world anymore. I beg your pardon. We should say the country in which we live. We are not citizens. May outwardly, I have a German passport, but I am a citizen of heaven, as if this is only a literal footnote. But in Germany, this is normally read in the worship meeting. And I have done it before, and we normally do not read the first half of verse 5. We read Christ Jesus, who subsisting and so forth. But what I want to draw our attention to is the first half of this verse 5, for let this mind be in you, beloved ones. This is the key to the portion. The application may be and is good for worship, but the key to this portion is let this mind be in you. While the Ephesians, the Philippians were asked in the beginning of chapter 2 to be of one mind, and to be of, we can read that shortly, verse 2, to fulfill my joy that ye may think the same thing, having the same love, joint in soul, thinking one thing. Let nothing be in the spirit or strife or vain glory, but in loneliness of mind, each esteeming the other as more excellent than themselves, regarding not each his own qualities, but each those of others also. Now I can imagine that one of the Philippians, or more of the Philippians said, well Paul, this is all very good, and we see that you are like this, but we are not like that. And it is hardly possible, hardly believable that we can reach that. And then Paul says, as if he would forestall that, for let this mind be in you. He gives them the explanation and says, look there, there was a man on earth, a perfect man from all points of view, and he had this mind, the Lord Jesus, the Son of God, came down, come down from heaven, and he is here presented as the manna. He is presented not in the first place for our worship, but he is presented to be our example, that we appropriate him, and that this mind which was in Christ might be in us. And what was this here? Two things, humiliation and obedience. How difficult it is today to speak with young brothers and sisters about obedience. And yet it is the key feature of, if I may say that, forgive me, is the key note of Christianity, because it was presented to us in the Lord Jesus, the Son of God. He humiliated himself, that was the first thing, when he came down on earth and took the form of a slave, that was his humiliation. But that was not enough. This stepping down of the he, of him who was subsisted in the form of God, was not enough to save us. He became obedient. And should that obedience, which marked the Son of God, him who, as we see in the Psalms, never had ears to hear, so that ears had to be done with him, typically speaking. He did not need ears, because it was him who created all things. It was him who commanded and others were, and all others were obedient, because he was the creator of all things. He was the one who became humiliated, he humbled himself, and he became obedient. Should we neglect a thing which characterized in such a way our Lord Jesus? For let this mind be in you, which also was in the Lord Jesus. That is, as I can see, the manner that we see the Lord Jesus in his manhood, humiliated and obedient before us. And Paul says, now, appropriate that, take that up, eat that, and learn from him. So as the Lord says, learn from me. What a wonderful thing to be occupied with the Lord in this manner. And I would like to turn to one other passage which has the same, which often is used in the same way, and that is 1 Peter chapter 2, 1 Peter 2, verse 21, 1 Peter 2, verse 21. For to this have ye been called. For Christ also has suffered for you, leaving you a model, or as the footnote says, a copy, as we say, to write from, a model, that ye should follow in his steps, who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth, who when reviled, reviled not again, when suffering, threatened not, but gave himself over into the hands of him who judges righteously. Leaving you a model, as it says in verse 21, that ye should follow in his steps. I think here we have a very similar thing, a very similar point of view as we found it in Philippians 2. Also this passage is very often read to bring out our worship, to bring out our thanksgiving to the Lord, and it is rightly done so. But the key to this portion, again, is that the Lord Jesus was our model, our example, to which we have to follow. And here we see not his obedience, but here we see his quietness, his submission, and the attitude that he did not justify and vindicate himself. What a mirror this is for our own lives. How often are we, when we are maybe justly attacked, the Lord was attacked unjustly, he was the just for the unjust, as we read in chapter 3. But here we see that he was doing no sin, well that applies to his life as the spotless lamb and which was necessary for his dying on the cross. But when we see neither was guile found in his mouth, who when reviled, reviled not again. That when suffering threatened not, but gave himself over into the hands of him who judges righteously. That when he was attacked, he did not fight back. And how is this a characteristic of our old man? And again the Lord says to us, I do not need to make many words on this, the Lord again says to this to us, learn of me, learn my ways, meekness, lowliness, humiliation, obedience, and here quietness, submission, even if we are wrongly attacked. We can give all things over in the hands of him who judges rightly. And if we do this, we show that we have fed on the Lord. May he grant us that we feed on this manna, on this lowly man, the son of God come as man here on earth for our strengthening. And that we may be characterized by him and show forth his characteristic. This is the highest aim a Christian can reach here on earth, that we become more like him. That our life expresses more the characteristics, the traits which our Lord Jesus revealed here on earth, which were such that heaven was opened and God could open his heaven and say this is my beloved son in whom I have found all my pleasure. He found it in him because he was submissive, because he was obedient, because he behaved here on earth as the perfect man, as man according to God's plan should behave here. And this is what the Lord wants us to reach. We often speak about growth in faith, and I think we often have the misapprehension that this applies to a great growth in knowledge, but that is not growth in faith. Knowledge, you may have such a head for knowledge and it only puffs you up, but growth in faith is that we step by step follow our Lord Jesus, that we eat him as our manna in one aspect at least, there are other aspects, but this is the manna for our life and walk through the wilderness. There he is the manna, and that we are becoming more and more like him. And we have read at the end of the chapter in Exodus 16 that God made a provision, that he told Moses to take one omer, one ration, one daily ration of this manna and put it into a pot. And we read in Hebrews 9 verse 4 that there was in the ark, it's not said in the Old Testament in Exodus 16 that it was in the ark, it was in front of the testimony, and the testimony were those two tablets of the law, and this pot of manna should be in front of this testimony. Well the children of Israel probably saw it fit to put the manna in the ark and put it there in front of the testimony, because Hebrews 9 says that in the ark there were the two tablets, and the staff of Aaron which had budded, and thirdly the pot, the golden pot with the manna. This manna which was kept there according to the command of God as an eternal, typically as an eternal remembrance, an eternal memory of the food of the people of God in the desert. Now this hidden manna the Lord mentions in the last book of the Bible, and we will shortly turn to that, Revelation 2 verse 17. Revelation 2 verse 17, He that has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the assemblies. To him that overcomes, to him will I give of the hidden manna, and I will give to him a white stone, and on the stone a new name written, which no one knows, but he that receives it. This is written to those who are overcomers in one of those seven churches of Asia in Pergamos, in that church where we see that Satan, that the church is there where the throne of Satan is, where the world has come, where the church has come in connection with the world, and where the Lord warns against these dangers. Well, I think even if we know that the historical period applies to a time long past by, that the practical application is very easily understood, that we are living in a time where the world and the church are in very close connection today, and the Lord speaks to those who are the overcomers. And He says, so those who in spite of this worldliness and this connection with the world cling to me and feed on me during their life here in the desert, here in the wilderness, to those I will give the hidden manna. Does this not speak, I would suggest, say, as a, what I would suggest of the fact that the communion, the fellowship we have practically during our pathway here in this wilderness with the Lord Jesus will be a treasure which shall be eternally valued and known by us? The Lord says to him who overcomes, I will give of the hidden manna, he will enjoy eternally that what he has found in his pathway through the desert, in me the true manna which has come down from heaven, from the Father. May the Lord grant us that we may be more filled with the desire of eating this heavenly manna. This man who came down from heaven to be the bread of life, to give life to man, to humanity, to those who believe in him, but also to sustain us during our pathway here below that we may soon, may the Lord grant it, share this wonderful portion of being granted, given as the overcomers in Pergamos, the hidden manna which the Lord promised to those overcomers. May the Lord bless his word on us, on our souls. Now I have to... And I would like to close this meeting with hymn number 230, 230. O Lord, when we the path retraced which thou on earth hast trod, to man thy wondrous love and grace, thy faithfulness to God, thy love by man so sorely tried proved stronger than the grave, the very spear that pierced thy side drew forth the blood to save. Faithful amid unfaithfulness, amid darkness only light, thou didst thy Father's name confess and in his will delight. Hymn 230. O Lord, when we the path retraced which thou on earth hast trod, to man thy wondrous love and grace, thy faithfulness to God, thy love by man so sorely tried proved stronger than the grave, the very spear that pierced thy side drew forth the blood to save. Faithful amid unfaithfulness, amid darkness only light, thou didst thy Father's name confess and in his will delight. Unmoved by Satan's power, forsworn in shame and awe, Thine arms, Lord, here on earth may lie, where thou only dost abide. We are the lambs thy holy line, and they who die need Thee, And all the bread that they shall find, they will recall Thee. …