Good evening and welcome to EBible Fellowship’s Bible study in the book of Genesis.  Tonight is study #8 of Genesis, chapter 22.  We are still reading the first two verses, in Genesis 22:1-2:

And it came to pass after these things, that God did tempt Abraham, and said unto him, Abraham: and he said, Behold, here I am. And he said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.

We are continuing to look at the word “tempt” as it is used in other places.  We have seen that God has activated His plan to bring about the Day of Judgment, which was typified by the “day of temptation” that Israel experienced in their 40-year wilderness sojourn.  We have already talked about the similarities.  There was “deliverance” from Egypt at the beginning of the 40 years, and this ties into the deliverance of the elect in the Jubilee year of 1994.  Then there was the concluding point when Israel entered into the Promised Land and, if we are correct in our understanding, our concluding point would be when we enter into the new heaven and new earth, which the Promised Land represented, in 2033 A. D.  There was also a time of severe testing throughout (the 40 years), and we certainly recognize that being the case from 1994 to our present time, and we can be sure it will continue until this prolonged Judgment Day comes to an end.  God has been testing, testing, testing. 

But throughout this time, there has been manna falling from heaven.  This is another thing we can see clearly in our present time as God has been opening up His Word and granting us understanding of things in the Scriptures that had never been fully understood previously  and things that none of our fathers had known.  That is the way the “bread from heaven” was described.  They had never known such a thing and it was used for forty years by the Jews that came out of Egypt.  It was the only time in the history of the world that God provided a miraculous bread from heaven as a literal thing, historically. 

Likewise, God had reserved much truth or much doctrine for the time of the end, and He has revealed these things to His people during this time, but not all at once.  Is that not interesting?  He did not reveal all truth at once.  We did not know all these things back in 1994 or 1995, but it has been a little bit at a time.  For example, He opened up the doctrine of the “faith of Christ” and the true meaning of baptism as the washing away of sin.  There was the clarification of the meaning of Sunday the Sabbath, and there was the revealing of the end of the church age, judgment on the churches and the revealing that Satan was “the man of sin.”  There was the revealing of the timeline and the time duration of the Great Tribulation and Judgment Day, and the revealing that annihilation is the true judgment for sin.  It is death that pays the wages for sin, and not suffering forevermore in a place called Hell.  There was the atoning work of Christ (at the foundation of the world), and many other things. 

And the opening of Scriptures has not stopped with the end of the Great Tribulation on May 21, 2011, but we also saw in Romans 2:5 that God ties together “the day of wrath and the revelation of the righteous judgment of God.”  The revelation or revealing of God’s judgment program is ongoing and His plan for the final judgment of mankind has continued into the (prolonged) Day of Judgment.  We learned about the spiritual judgment and what that means, and we learned of the elect’s appearance before the judgment seat, and the division of Satan’s kingdom and the fall of Babylon.  It has been revealed slowly over the course of time as it is brought to the surface as more “manna from heaven.”  This is the provision that God has made to spiritually nourish His people over the course of this severe trial in the “day of temptation” or Day of Judgment in the wilderness of this world.

We saw in Exodus 16 that God gave us the reason for giving the “manna” in Exodus 16:4:

Then said JEHOVAH unto Moses, Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you; and the people shall go out and gather a certain rate every day, that I may prove them, whether they will walk in my law, or no.

The manna came down to prove, tempt or try them.  Would they obey God, or not?  That does not make too much sense concerning physical manna.  That tried them on a natural level as they had hunger and a desire for other food.  But God said it was all related to whether they would “walk in my law, or no.”  And that statement more adequately identifies with the spiritual manna because it is all doctrine, and the testing program is always whether we will obey the information God brings down from above in the form of doctrine that had not been previously known by our fathers.  Will people obey, or not? 

This is where people can fail the test, as God opens up a “new” doctrine.   They refused the “faith of Christ.”  They refused the Sunday Sabbath.  They refused that the Lord died at the foundation of the world and made payment for sin then.  They refuse that “Hell” is death or annihilation.  They refuse the end of the church age.  They refuse a spiritual judgment.  They refuse the shut door of heaven and the end of God’s salvation program.  They refuse the idea of a prolonged Judgment Day.  They refuse these things, again, and again, and again.  In their refusal, they are like the Israelites in the wilderness that murmured and complained and wanted to return to Egypt.  (The Bible says that they did return in their hearts.)  So, we see people going back, and that is what has been happening over this time period in which the Lord has been revealing these truths.  Every time He reveals something, it is the “straw that broke the camel’s back” for some.  They are done with all these “spiritual understandings” and all this talk about the end of the world.  “I am going back to the church.”  If they do not go back to the churches physically, they may go back to former doctrines.  For all intents and purposes, they have turned back to the churches, which have become “Egypt,” according to Revelation 11.  There are even a few that have gone back to the world, but the world can also be likened to Egypt.  So, whether they go back to the world or back to the fallen, apostate churches, they are returning to “Egypt.”  If they stay outside of the churches and try to stay involved with the Bible in some way, some have gone back to “Egypt” by returning to former doctrines, refusing what God has opened up, the “manna from heaven.”

We will look at the Jew’s viewpoint of the manna, but first let us look at Deuteronomy 8:1-2:

All the commandments which I command thee this day shall ye observe to do, that ye may live, and multiply, and go in and possess the land which JEHOVAH sware unto your fathers. And thou shalt remember all the way which JEHOVAH thy God led thee these forty years in the wilderness, to humble thee, and to prove thee, to know what was in thine heart, whether thou wouldest keep his commandments, or no.

Again, it said in Deuteronomy 8:15-16:

Who led thee through that great and terrible wilderness, wherein were fiery serpents, and scorpions, and drought, where there was no water; who brought thee forth water out of the rock of flint; Who fed thee in the wilderness with manna, which thy fathers knew not, that he might humble thee, and that he might prove thee, to do thee good at thy latter end;

Again, there is the “manna” and the “proving.”  It is also succinct that it was during the wilderness sojourn that God told Moses to speak to the rock, and Moses struck the rock twice and water gushed out to provide water for the congregation of Israel.  It happens that it was during this 40-year period that we are presently in that some of the spiritual “manna from heaven” or the doctrines that God opened up had to do with the Lord Jesus being smitten twice by the Law of God, who Moses represented.  That is just one piece of interesting information that God kept in reserve until our time.  We finally learned the meaning of why Moses smote that rock, and the word “smote” is the same word that means to “kill.”  Moses smote the rock and 1Corinthians 10 identifies that Rock as Christ.  When we put together that spiritual picture and get our definitions from the Bible, we realize that the Law (Moses) killed the rock (Christ) twice.  That would be the spiritual definition when we follow the Bible’s methodology and allow the Bible to be its own interpreter.  This statement has made no sense in past history, but only in our time has the Lord opened up the Scriptures to reveal the proper understanding.  Now we can see it:  “Oh, yes, He is the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world, which was the first time Christ was smitten; then He entered into the world to make manifest what He had done, and He was smitten by the Law a second time, but He was not bearing our sins at that time, nor making payment for our sins at that time.  These things serve to “prove” us.

Let us also go to Numbers 11, and we will see the reaction of the Jews (the people of God at that time) to the manna.  It says in Numbers 11:4-10:

And the mixt multitude that was among them fell a lusting: and the children of Israel also wept again, and said, Who shall give us flesh to eat? We remember the fish, which we did eat in Egypt freely; the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlick: But now our soul is dried away: there is nothing at all, beside this manna, before our eyes. And the manna was as coriander seed, and the colour thereof as the colour of bdellium. And the people went about, and gathered it, and ground it in mills, or beat it in a mortar, and baked it in pans, and made cakes of it: and the taste of it was as the taste of fresh oil. And when the dew fell upon the camp in the night, the manna fell upon it. hen Moses heard the people weep throughout their families, every man in the door of his tent: and the anger of JEHOVAH was kindled greatly; Moses also was displeased.

We know from the New Testament Gospel of John that the manna identified with Christ, because Christ is the Word of God.  The manna came down from above, and it was keeping them alive physically.  It was sustaining their lives.  Without the manna, they would have died without sufficient food.  So they were despising that which was keeping them alive and that which had saved their lives.  You see, that is the perverse nature of man.  Man is an ungrateful, fallen creature.  Because of his fallen condition, He is ungrateful to God.  He is unthankful to God.  He just consumes things upon his lusts and just wants more, and more, and he is never content with that which he has received.  The physical manna from heaven was of tremendous value.  Anything that is keeping you alive has great value in itself, and this bread – although plain – was keeping them alive.  And, yet, they were desiring other foods and remembering their gourmet meals when they were in Egypt.  Of course, they were not gourmet meals.  The quality of the food was probably not that good.  They were slaves in Egypt and the Egyptians would have given them just sufficient food to keep them working as servants to Pharaoh and Egypt.  But, in their mind’s eye, they were looking back to Egypt.  That is the first thing we can see.  They were remembering the food of Egypt.  In the Bible, God does relate “meat” to doctrine.  For example, it says in Hebrews 13:9:

Be not carried about with divers and strange doctrines. For it is a good thing that the heart be established with grace; not with meats, which have not profited them that have been occupied therein.

Here, we can see that God first speaks of “strange doctrines” and then He refers to “meats.”  Remember that when the Lord showed Peter a vision when he was on the rooftop of a house in Acts, chapter 10.  God showed him a vision of unclean animals, commanding him, “Rise, Peter; kill and eat.”  Peter said, “Not so, Lord; for I have never eaten any thing that is common or unclean.”  The vision was shown to him three times and God told him, “What God hath cleansed, that call not thou common.”  Then immediately after the vision had stopped, there was an embassage from Cornelius, a Gentile.  I believe it was three men, plus three times he saw the vision, with the number “three” indicating the purpose of God.  They told him to come to Cornelius’ house and Peter went because of the vision.  It was not proper for a Jew to go to a Gentile’s house, but in the vision of the meat God had shown him that he was not to view the Gentiles as “unclean.”  When he went to the Gentile’s house, the Holy Spirit fell upon them, and Peter realized that God had made the Gentiles fellowheirs with the Jews; that is, God’s salvation program would include both, and there would be no distinction made.  There would be no special dealing with the Jews, as had been the case in the history of Israel.  (Well, in many ways that was true, but God had saved people like Naaman the Syrian, Ruth the Moabitess and Rahab the harlot, which were outside of Israel.)  But now God’s plan would include the Gentiles and through the “meat” of unclean animals, the Lord typified a change in His doctrine.  The eating of those unclean animals meant that the Gentiles would be fellowheirs.  Now they did not have to eat only “clean” animals, but they could partake of the “unclean” animals.  So all that related to the “meat” had to do with “doctrine.”

When the Israelites and the mixed multitude (those of other nations that were with them) wept together and they said, “We remember the fish, which we did eat in Egypt freely; the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlick,”  and they remembered the meat.  The fish is “meat” and, of course, the other food is also “meat,” in the sense that it is food.  They remembered these things on a physical level, but it points to something very important on a spiritual level.  When God opens up the Scriptures which He has been doing in our time for a few decades now, then people begin to “partake” of these doctrines that are all from the Bible, and the Bible only.  There is nothing added or subtracted, but it is coming only from the Bible and it is plain “manna from heaven.” 

You know, there is nothing dramatic concerning how doctrine is derived from the Bible – it is through study and diligent labor in the Scripture, comparing spiritual with spiritual, that truth comes forth.  It is very “mechanical,” in a sense, and it is very plain and ordinary when we compare it to the churches and congregations going after the charismatic movement where there is all kinds of excitement like speaking in tongues, falling over backwards and holy laughter.  They have very dynamic and dramatic presentation of their gospels as they stir up the emotions of the hearers in various ways.  There are visual presentations and the music has become the music of the world, even though they try pull in some lyrics from the Bible.  Everything is geared to the “flesh” with the feelings and emotions, as they excite the lusts of the flesh. 

Then there are people that see these things all around them, but none of that is for them.  They come under the hearing of the true Gospel during this time and it is the Bible, the Bible, the Bible.  It is constantly what the Bible says, and it is “bread” that has never before been known and, yet, they can still be looking at the world or looking at the churches that are like the world in the things they go after.  Or, maybe they consider their old congregation and its doctrines, and they might think, “When I was in a church, we had the understanding that Hell was a place, and if someone died unsaved, he would go to hell.  That is really why I became a Christian because I was afraid of Hell and I did not want to go to Hell.  When I became a Christian I was delivered from Hell, so that was a big bonus and a good incentive for being a Christian and staying a Christian.  So, if there is no Hell, I do not fear that if I die I would just cease to be.  That does not sound too bad.  That is not like this hammer being held over my head.  I prefer the old doctrine.  I like the idea of Hell because it validates my life as a Christian that I can escape that awful place of eternal sorrow and torment.  But, if there is no eternal Hell, well…”  You see, they are thinking back and they uncomfortable with this “manna,” and they remember the former “meat” and it causes them to be displeased or dissatisfied.

The Lord opened up the doctrine of the Lord having died for sin at the foundation of the world.  Some people were satisfied with other manna that had come down, but here is manna that is disturbing to them: “What do you mean that Jesus did not pay for sin at the cross and that it was only a demonstration?  I always understood from my pastor in my Reformed church that Christ paid for sins at the cross.  Everyone knows that.  I have known that for years, and now you are telling me that is not true.  It is incorrect?  I do not like this at all.”  You see, they had accepted it as “meat” received in their congregation, which has now become “Egypt,” and they are looking back and remembering the leeks and the onions and the garlic they had eaten in Egypt.  It is causing them to be displeased with the present food, the plain manna coming down from above.  It is very troubling to them.

Lord willing, we will discuss a little further when we get together in our next Bible study.