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Source: https://www.sermonindex.net/speakers/william-lavery/food/
Good to be here. Glad to see so many. We trust that God will bless his word. I'm going to read first of all in the book of Exodus chapter 12. Exodus chapter 12 and verse number 8. Exodus 12 and verse number 8.
And they shall eat the flesh in that night, roast with fire, and on leavened bread, and with bitter herbs they shall eat it. Eat not of it raw, nor sodden it all with water, but roast with fire his head with his legs, and with the pertinence of the inward parts thereof.
Ye shall let nothing of it remain until the morning, and that which remaineth of it until the morning ye shall burn with fire. Now chapter 16 please. Verse 14. Exodus 16 and 14. And when the dew that lay was gone up, behold, upon the face of the wilderness there lay a small round thing, as small as the whore frost on the ground.
And when the children of Israel saw it, they said one to another, it is manna, for they wist not what it was. And Moses said unto them, this is the bread which the Lord hath given you to eat. This is the thing which the Lord hath commanded.
Gather of it every man according to his eating. An omer for every man according to the number of your persons. Take ye every man for them which were in his house. And the children of Israel did so and gathered some more and some less.
Now the next reading I have is in Joshua chapter 5 please. And verse number 12. And the manna ceased in the morrow after they had eaten of the old corn of the land. Neither had the children of Israel manna any more, but they did eat of the fruit of the land of Canaan that year.
Now another reading in the book of Leviticus please. Chapter 11 verse number 2. Leviticus 11 and verse number 2. Speak unto the children of Israel saying, these are the beasts or the living things which ye shall eat among all the beasts that are on the earth.
Whatsoever parteth the hoof and is cloven-footed and cheweth the cud among the beasts, that shall ye eat. Nevertheless, these shall ye not eat of them that chew the cud or of them that divide the hoof.
As the camel, because he cheweth the cud but divideth not the hoof, he is unclean unto you. And the coney, because he cheweth the cud but divideth not the hoof, he is unclean unto you. And the hare, because he cheweth the cud and divided not the hoof, he is unclean unto you.
And the swine, though he divide the hoof and be cloven-footed, yet he cheweth not the cud, he is unclean. Verse 9. These shall ye eat of all that are in the waters. Whatsoever hath fins and scales in the waters, in the seas, in the rivers, that shall ye eat.
Now a final reading in Philippians chapter 4, please. Verse number 3. Philippians 4 and verse number 3. And I entreat thee also, true yoke-fellow, help those women which laboureth with me in the gospel, with Clement also, and with other my fellow labourers whose names are in the book of life.
Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say, rejoice. Verse 8. Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report, if there be any virtue, if there be any praise, think on these things.
Now we know that God will bless the reading of his precious word. Now I don't think there's much chance that you'll find me in the gym. You can look for me, but I don't go in maybe too much for keeping in shape, but they say that round is shape.
So anyhow, you'll not find me in the gym. And then what I'm going to speak about, maybe it wouldn't be conducive, but I'm going to speak about eating. Now our brother last night at the prayer meeting, brother Bruce here, he spoke on the fountains of waters and the broken cisterns, and it was very good.
You missed it if you didn't come to the prayer meeting. I don't know why we don't have more at the prayer meetings. I know you all can't come and you've come distances, but maybe some could have been there that weren't.
Well, I thought maybe this would follow in some little measure. I want to speak about food, the food for God's people. That's very important. What are we feeding on? Not talking about the physical food.
Most of us seem that we're doing okay as far as that is concerned, but what about spiritual food? Are we making any progress in the things of God? Well, we need to take inventory once in a while, and it's good just to ask myself, have I made any progress in the last year or maybe in the last months?
And most of us would have to hang our heads maybe in shame, and we haven't made too much progress. But anyhow, I want to speak first of all from Exodus 12 about food for the heart. It's good to have a heart, a physical heart that's beating well, and I want to speak of food for the heart.
And then in Exodus 16, we read about the manna. That's food for the humble, and we read food from heaven or food for the heavenly in Joshua chapter five, and then we read of food for the holy in Leviticus chapter 11.
So, those are the four things. We're going to take a little bit of time, and I should be done by, what, 11 o 'clock. God gives help. Now, what about food for the heart? How's your heart? Some of us, our hearts aren't so good as used to be.
They're not beating the way they did. Some of us are pacemakers. I always say, well, blessed are the pacemakers. Good thing to keep the old heart going, but it's far better to keep it going in spiritual things.
We had a good heartbeat when God saved us, didn't we? Because we had a great appreciation of the Lord Jesus Christ and the work that he accomplished at Calvary. We weren't thinking about very much else.
That's what was captivating our heart, not only the work, but the person, the person of the Lord Jesus. And I talked a little bit about this at the Blue River Conference, but it bears repetition, I think.
You have the children of Israel, and they're down in the land of Egypt, and they're slaves to Pharaoh, just as you and I were slaves to sin before God saved us. And if you haven't gotten deeply into sin, or if you never did get, don't apologize for that.
That's something that most of us were saved when we were older. We'd be glad if we hadn't gotten into some of these things. It's a great thing to be saved while you're young. And if you're saved while you're young, well then, make good progress in the things of God, because then you likely won't go after the things of Egypt.
There were lots of food down in Egypt, but it was that that was down the ground, and that, as you know it all, you could give an odor to the breath. And if a person's feeding on the things of this world, it's very obvious when they speak what they've been really occupied with.
Well, they were given the roast lamb, and that was to wean them away out of Egypt. It was the only way that God would bring them out of the slavery of sin. It wasn't all the plagues that were enacted against Egypt, and the gods of Egypt couldn't bring them out.
But then he says, now I want you to take a little lamb. That must have been touched the heart, especially the children, especially the firstborn if they were young. They would ask, what's a little lamb for?
Well, you know that God has said we need to take a little lamb. We're going to be brought out of Egypt. We're going to be brought out of this world, and there's one that has to pay a great price, and that's the Lord Jesus.
And we read, eat of it not sodden with water, but roast with fire. It speaks of the intense sufferings of the Lord to save you and to save me. And if that would get a grip of your heart and mine, I'll tell you, that would wean us away from the world.
This is food for the heart, to give us a heart for the things of God. Do you have a heart for God's things? Or what is it that really occupies our minds? We can all become occupied with so many things in this world, and maybe not all together really evil things, but things that will keep us away from enjoying the things of God.
Are you enjoying the things of God? Are you enjoying the roast lamb? And that's going to change our lives. I'm not asking you if you're sheltered under the blood. Thankfully, most here likely would be sheltered under the blood, but I hope we get a little farther than that and make some progress.
Are we feeding on the lamb, the head and the legs and the inward parts thereof? And I don't want to take time in going into details, but you study it. The head of the Lord Jesus, that's so important, how he thought.
Have this mind in you, which also was in Christ Jesus. What about the legs? What about a walk? They saw Jesus as he walked. Behold the lamb of God. We're told who this lamb is. It's the Lord Jesus. Behold the lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.
Peter says he has left us an example that we should follow in his steps. What about the inward parts? Do we have bowels of compassion as the Lord Jesus did for you and for me? That was shown in his life while he was here, but I want us to think of it to ourselves.
He was so compassionate, wasn't he? We deserved hell and the lake of fire for all eternity, but there was one who had compassion upon us, loved us so much, went to the cross, suffered what the lamb in Egypt never did.
It never suffered, but he suffered and willingly he went to the cross so that you and I would have a good heart, a heart that would beat for him and there are those that would be near enough to his heart to know his will and to follow it in their lives.
Now what about the manna? That's food for the humble. It was a small round thing. You read Exodus 16 and it speaks so beautifully of the Lord Jesus Christ and his humility. Oh, it speaks about the roundness, would speak maybe of his eternity.
He's the eternal son of God, but it speaks of humility, a small white thing and it was, they found it on the ground, but not exactly on the ground, but on the dew that fell upon the ground. You had to stoop down to get it and really it speaks of Christ in humility.
And when the Lord Jesus was in the wilderness, he showed that in being obedient to his father. When he was tempted in the wilderness, what did he say? It is written or it stands written, the word of God never changes.
Some people like to change the word of God and there's so many translations and if you search long enough, you'll maybe get one that you can agree with and something, but that's not the way we read the word of God.
I have a lot of translations, don't get me wrong. I look for help wherever I need help, wherever I can get it. I was telling him recently about when I was away up in the Shetland Islands, away in the north of Scotland, away up near Norway, there was a brother there, brother Johnson.
He says, I'd like to show you my Bible. Well, I said, I've seen a lot of Bibles in my day, but he said, this one's a little different. And do you know what he showed me? In the scripture where it said that the women should be dressed in modest apparel, it said that they should be dressed in modern apparel.
It was a misprint in his Bible. I said, I could use a few thousand of those, maybe in the United States. You like to be modern, but well, the sisters should be modest. But anyhow, the Lord Jesus, he was virtually saying this, the same what he said in Gethsemane, not my will, but thine be done.
He was the obedient son all his life. Isn't that what true humility really is? It's not my will, but thine. It's going according to the word of God. And that should be the desire of each one of us. That's what I would like to do, to go according to God's will.
And the Lord Jesus said, it is written or it stands written, no matter what the temptation was, here he is in Gethsemane. There's a great cost, you know, in being obedient. It doesn't mean that everything's going to be rosy in the garden if you're going to be obedient to God's word.
That's when things get a little bit rough. And especially after a person is baptized. It was after the Lord was baptized that he was tempted in the wilderness. And lots of times when people are baptized, especially if you come from a family that hasn't been associated with the assemblies, you're going to find out that Satan is a great tempter.
But may God help us to be able to say, what about the word of God? Story goes years ago about someone got saved and they were a bit shaky, you know, and they figured Satan was tempting them. I don't know if it was Satan himself or his emissaries, but anyhow, they were tempted.
And what he did was he opened his Bible at the verse that God had used to reach him, John 3, 16, and he told Satan, he says, there it is, you can see it for yourself. And he was able to leave it out. And it stands written.
Wouldn't it be great if we were able to get through the wilderness in this way? The children of Israel complained. Are there complainers among us? You know, I remember, and I don't know if Brother Bruce would remember this, but I know he remembers when I went up north with Mr. Edward Dougherty, first series of meetings I had after I left my employment.
And Mr. Dougherty, he said, we're going to this house, we're invited for supper. And he said, they have a son that hasn't been out to meeting for a long time. And Mr. Dougherty was inimitable. He was a tremendous man.
And as we drove into the farmyard, he saw this man disappear in the barn. And he said to me, he said, you go into the house. And I went into Taylor's house, and I didn't even know them. I felt a little bit awkward.
And, but he told me later, he said, I caught him in the barn. And he said, why don't you come down? What's wrong? You don't come to the assembly. Oh, he said, there are a bunch of complainers down there.
No, Mr. Dougherty told him, just stay away. We don't need any more. We don't need complainers among God's people. We have nothing really to complain about. My goodness, just think where you could have been today.
And where you could be on the road to. I'm glad that God saved me. And I hope I appreciate it more and more. And I'd like to walk humbly before God. That's the only way to get through this wilderness world.
The complainers perished in the wilderness. Didn't trust God. Well, anyhow, they got the bread from heaven, a small round thing. Now, what about food for the heavenly? Well, the manna ceased. I know there was a piece of, there was some manna put in the golden pot in the sanctuary.
And I often think, well, if I'm going to feed in the manna today, that's why I need to feed in the sanctuary. Get into God's presence, get into the Lord's presence, and the Lord will feed us with food convenient for us.
But we have the old corn of the land, and that's Christ in resurrection. And you know, when God saved us, we should be seeking those things which are above. When the Lord went up from the Mount of Olives, the disciples saw him up, going up.
They had asked the question, they said, when are you going to set up the kingdom? And the Lord said, it's not for you to know the times and the seasons. Nothing wrong with studying prophecy. I would like to know more about it.
But what was the Lord, why did he say that to them? Because they were a heavenly people. It was difficult for them maybe to leave the old Judaism and some of the things. But when they saw him go up to heaven, I think he was lifting their eyes up to heaven.
And that's what he wants to do with us. Lift our eyes up to heaven. We're a heavenly people. We're going home. It won't be very long. And the older some of us get, well, all of us, we should be thinking about, we're not going to be here forever.
And I know you maybe look at the obituaries, maybe you're looking to see if your name's there, and hopefully it's not. But you know, you see people dying younger than you are, and you begin to think about it.
And we should always think about it. I don't want to be morbid and go around thinking about death and walking through the graveyard, the cemetery. But we're only here for a little while. When are we going to put these things into practice?
Now is the time, isn't it? To feed upon the heavenly food, the old corn of the land, Christ and resurrection, except the corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone, but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.
Now, what about this holy food? I have been reading this chapter quite a bit, and I'm not going to go into all the details. I have heard some wonderful things about all these little animals and birds, and the little owl, you know, with the antenna, that's the radio, and the big owl, that's the antenna, that's the TV, and all that.
Well, be careful what you're listening on, anything. The telephone could be, maybe you could get it if you search enough, you get the telephone in here too. But you know, the main thing is, you are what you eat.
That's the thought here. Whatever we're feeding on, that's what we will produce in our lives. And we read about those animals, and what was it that characterized the clean animals? There were two things, the cloven hoof, or the divided hoof, and the chewing of the cud.
Now, what does that mean? What does it mean to have a divided hoof? Well, a divided hoof, you can trace that, you know, on the ground, it leaves a mark. And each one of us, we all leave a mark in this world.
Wonder what kind of a mark I will leave. I wonder what they'll think of me when I'm gone. Don't tell me, please. Just wouldn't want to hear. Some preachers, you could say, well, boy, he really could shout.
And some could really do this and that, and we're really funny, and all that stuff. I'd like to, it'd be good if people could say, well, he could take us into the Lord's presence, or he could warm our hearts.
That's what we're trying to do with one another. We're going to leave a mark. And as well as that, as I said, you can see that mark of the hoof. You know, I'm not a hunter, but if you're hunting deer and animals, I suppose all kinds of animals, you can even go by their footprint.
But I thought as well, we're leaving an example that they can follow. And Peter said, the Lord has left us an example that we should follow in his steps. That's what we're looking, we want to be more like him, don't we?
We're going to be like him in the future. But I'd like to be getting a little bit more like him day by day, wouldn't you? Surely that's the desire of our heart. We're going to be changed, going to be a tremendous change for each one of us.
I'd like it to be just a little bit less, because I'd be coming more and more like the Lord Jesus. What about chewing the cud? Well, we not only leave our mark, but we meditate on the things of God. We don't just swallow everything right away that anyone says, preacher or anyone else, we shouldn't.
Chew upon it, think upon it. That's maybe a lost art for some of us. We're so busy, aren't we? We need to take time. I remember one time my father was having meetings in a little schoolhouse in a place, a remote area.
And they saw him walking down the road. He's walking from where the bus route or the streetcar route stop. And he's walking. And one of them said, oh, you shouldn't, you should have told us we would pick you up.
He said, we would, we would have gone. Oh, he said, you know, he said when Paul sent the others by ship in Acts 20, he walked alone. Why did he walk alone? He wasn't explaining all this to you. I'm trying to explain it to you.
But anyhow, why did he walk alone? I believe he was meditating on the word of God. He was going to speak to the elders at Ephesus. As far as he knew, he would never see them again. So he wanted a word from God.
And my father said, he said, you know, I can meditate when I'm walking. I can think of these things and prepare for the meeting. Think them over in his mind. Do you ever think about these things? That's what the preacher or anyone that ministered the word would hope, that everybody would have an appetite.
Give him an appetite for the word of God to learn more of the things of God. Now you go on, you can, it goes on to speak of those things in the waters. What would you get from a fish with fins and scales?
Well, I think the scales are protection. We need protection. And as we go through the, this world, the world is like the, the seas are rest, restless, cast up mire and dirt. We need to, we need to be protected.
How are we protected? By what we feed on. That's the important thing. Feed on the things of God. And there's a, well, it can be protected. And then there would be the scales in the fins. Of course, that's how the fish would navigate.
And, and we have to navigate through this world. We don't go with the flow. That's what a lot of people today, they think, well, we'll just go with the flow. And when I was first saved, there was a young man in the assembly.
He said, oh, he said, just do what you like. And if you're wrong, the elders will correct you. Well, that's not the kind of Christianity I wanted. I wanted to please the Lord. I wasn't doing it to please the, the elders or anybody else.
God saved us and has given us food. We have lots of food in the word of God. Now, of course, there's a, there's a lot of animals that weren't clean and birds that weren't clean. They were the birds that they fed on carry and on the, on the, on, well, we'd say today, roadkill and all the garbage and stuff that there is.
That's not going to do you any good. There's lots of garbage in the world today. And there's lots of believers can feed on it. There's, there's things that, that sort of attract us and you can't help being attracted by things.
We're in the world. We're not of the world, but we're in the world. And you have birds of prey. Why are they like to pounce on others? And, and, and, uh, of course, uh, there'll never be a help to God's people.
I must, I promised to stop and I'm going to stop. You look, think of the mole going through the dirt. Yeah. We don't get into all the dirt and, and, and there's cases of discipline in the assemblies, maybe on the West coast or the East coast.
I don't need to take sides with anybody or to know about it at all. Why are we so curious about all these things and just keep ourselves right with God and think on the things of, of God? No, I, I, I'm going to close some, some animals.
I should mention chew the cud, but didn't part the hoof. There's some Christians even, you know, I'm not saying you're unclean in that way, but some can study the word, but they don't live it out in their life.
And there's others can live it out in their life. And it's not according to the word. It's just something that's legal. We don't want that. We want to enjoy the things of God. We're citizens of heaven.
And that I just have to close because we read there in Philippians chapter four, what we read about rejoice because your names are written in heaven. The previous chapter tells us they're waiting for a savior.
And just as they were waiting for a representative of Rome to come and they wanted to have everything in perfect shape. So that should be our desire. But there were a couple of sisters and this can happen to brothers as well.
They weren't getting along. What was their problem? We're not told. So maybe you can apply it to what your difficulty would be, but I'll tell you what their difficulty was. They weren't acting like citizens of heaven.
Do we always act like that? Well, that's why we read whatsoever things I'm paraphrasing and things that are genuine, that are honorable, that are righteous, that are pure, that are pleasing, attractive.
If any moral excellence, think on these things. And I'm just going to close by saying this, sum it all up. Think on the Lord. All these things were seen in him. May the Lord help us to be occupied with him.
If we are, I'll tell you, we'll be more like him.