July, 1937
T H E K I N G ’ S B U S I N E S S
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life to our souls. It is Jesus, the One who said: “I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst.”
battle? The Lord is a man of war. Do you want somebody to be your advocate, to stand in the high court and plead your cause? We have an Advocate. Our God adapts Himself exactly to the very shape and body and color of our wants. —J ohn M c N eill . When God’s People Were Hungry E xodus 16:1 to 17:7 Memory Verse: “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father” (Jas. 1:17). Approach: In our story today, we find that the children of Israel have been on their journey for six weeks. The cloud has been leading them all of this time. The
Translated Into New Testament language, “that Rock was Christ” (1 Cor. 10:4). It is not from His teachings while upon earth, nor from His example as He walked among men, nor from the miracles He performed, but from the smitten (crucified) Christ alone that there flows the healing and life- giving stream. It is true we are “saved by his life” (Rom. 5:10), but it is His life as risen from the dead to which reference here is made. The teaching that it is His earthly life wherein we are to find sus tenance rises from a hatred of the cross whereon He became the smitten One. Points and Problems As in the case of other supernatural oc currences of the Bible, destructive critics have tried to explain the “mannci> of this lesson by naturalistic causes. One popular theory is that the manna was merely a gum exuded from trees which was sometimes eaten by the natives of the desert., But this explanation is impossible for several reasons. 1. The manna constituted the main food (Num. 11:6) of several millions of people for forty years (Ex. 16:35), whereas the gum referred 'to is found only in small quantities. 2. The manna fell continuously through out the entire year (Neh. 9:20), but the gum is seasonal and in some years does not appear at all. 3. The manna could be baked or boiled (Ex. 16:23), but this gummy substance does not admit of either mode of preparation. 4. The manna of the Bible failed to fall every seventh day, the day that was the sabbath (v. 25). It is safe to say that no modern observer has ever seen the gum ap pear and disappear in this strange fashion. 5. The manna, if kept more than one day, would breed worms and stink (v. 20). But this ordinary rule did not hold good on the sabbath (v. 24) when the people were able to preserve it without spoiling. Certainly it would be strange to see the ordinary desert gum act in this arbitrary manner. 6. Also in connection with the Biblical manna there was what may be called the miracle of equalization: If one gathered much, he had nothing over; and he that gathered little had no lack (v. 18). Let the critics try this with-their gummy stuff. 7. Finally, the gum referred to is not a food at all in the first instance. It is a medicine, laxative in nature. How much easier it is to believe the Word of God than to accept the muddy explanations set forth by unbelieving menl God is- whatever you need Him to be. There is an old legend among the Jews that the manna tasted like whatever you were hungry for every morning. If you woke up, for example, hungry for Egyptian cu cumbers and leeks, and did not murmur after them, but thankfully took your manna, the manna tasted like them. And God, He is our life; He is all our strength and stay, and is whatever we need Him to be. Do you want a friend? God is a guide. Do you want somebody to be your leader in Golden T ext Illustration J ames 1:17
Object Lesson F ollowing the L eader
quickest way to the p rom ise d land led through the land be longing to a power ful and wicked peo ple. But God knew th a t H is p eop le would be discouraged if they had to fight these people at this time, and with the cloud He led them
Objects: A fluffy ball of cotton and a cracker. (Fasten one of these objects at each end of a white thread about a foot long.) Lesson: Did you ever play “Follow the Leader” ? You will remember the cloud about which we talked last week. God used a cloud with which to guide His peo ple. Here is the same ball of cotton, re minding us of the cloud that guided the children of Israel. Wherever the cloud goes, the cracker that is attached follows. This cloud and cracker remind me of the children of Israel in the wilderness. As long as they fol lowed the cloud, they received the manna. The food that God provided appeared in the path in which the cloud guided them. As long as they were under the cloud, they were sure of receiving the food. I am reminded of the prophet Elijah. He was told to go to the brook to hide, and the Lord said: “I have commanded the ravens to feed thee there” (1 Ki. 17:4). When the brook had dried up, again the voice of God spoke to him; saying: “Arise, get thee to Zarephath. . . . I have com manded a widow woman there to sustain thee.” In both cases Elijah had to be where God wanted him, in order to receive food. If we want God to provide for us, we must follow His guidance and must re ceive Christ as our Saviour. If we follow the Lord, He will provide for us just as surely as He did for the children of Israel in the wilderness. wholly antagonistic to the plain declara tions of Scripture. The ingenuity of Moses, and still less his alleged borrowing from Babylonian or other sources, had nothing whatever to do with what Moses wrote. Nor did Moses add anything, because down through a wilderness. Because there was no food in the wilder ness, it wasn’t very long before the children of Israel were beginning to complain. How quickly they forgot all of the wonderful things that God had done for them and the wonderful promises of the things that He was going to do! Instead of remem bering these, they began to wish they were back in Egypt. They had already forgot ten the terribly hard times that they had endured while living there, and they thought only of the rich and plentiful food. They complained to Moses and his brother Aaron, but it was really against God that they murmured, as Moses reminded them. However, God forgave them and pre pared a food for them. As He had pro vided a way for them to cross the sea, so He provided a food. There it was each morning, spread upon the ground, where they could gather and eat. The people called it manna. This was their bread from heaven. It gave life to their bodies. We have a Bread ’from heaven which gives Lesson Text: Ex. 20:1-17. Golden Text: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. . . . Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself” (Matt. 22:37, 39). Outline and Exposition I. T he S ource of the L aw (1) G od spake all these words.” If the Bible be true, the law came direct from God and came from Him in i words. The idea that God gave certain concepts or thoughts, and that Moses clothed those concepts or thoughts in words, is AUGUST 15, 1937 GOD GIVES LAWS TO A NATION E xodus 19:1 to 20:21
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