Sunday, June 11, 2023 PM

Sunnyside Baptist Church

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And before we begin reading there, we will go ahead and start with a word of prayer.

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Heavenly Father, we thank you for the day. We thank you for the beauty of your creation and the constancy of your love.

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We pray that you would help us as we read your word to rejoice in your truth. We pray these things in Jesus' name, amen.

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Now, as we're studying the fourth commandment, remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. We are thinking about how it pertains to what

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God did in creation, how God dealt with Noah, how God dealt with Abraham.

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And we see the themes of rest, the themes of rest in that God rested from his labor in creation when everything was very good.

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Everything in its right place, in its right relationship. When things did not remain there because of sin and there was great toil and trouble on the earth,

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Lamech reflected upon the need for these things to be put back in their proper place to be at rest again.

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And he named his son, Noah, rest. And we see the themes of rest and reconciliation and peace and comfort in the story of Noah and a promise of God's faithfulness and although man deserves to all perish again and another flood because of man's sinfulness and warring against God, yet God gives a sign, the rainbow.

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And gives some instructions to Noah and all the created order. We thought about Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and how restless they were, how they traveled and were on pilgrimages here and there and everywhere and how it was that they never could just settle down somewhere.

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And yet all throughout their travels, God kept on giving them his promises.

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Every time they were anxious and afraid and restless and it seemed that they would not have any place to stop, to catch their breath and really settle down.

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God kept on giving them his promises that they would rest in those promises and trust in him.

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And it is because of the promises that God made to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob that God looked upon the suffering of his people

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Israel in Egypt as they cried out in their bondage, in their slavery.

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And we read in Exodus, he remembered his promise to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, which means he went into action and began to act upon those promises that he had made.

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And he delivered the children of Israel, the children of Jacob from the land of Egypt by mighty signs and wonders.

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And he promised them that he would bring them to the promised land, just like he had told

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Abraham. And he brings them out and he brings them into the wilderness where there's not a lot of food and not a lot of water, but there was a lot of complaining.

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And God begins to show them who he is. And as Moses would say later on in Deuteronomy, he lets you be hungry.

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He let you be thirsty so he could show you a thing or two about himself. So now we come to Exodus 16.

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Now this is before God comes down on Mount Sinai with flame and smoke and thunder and before the covenant is made.

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Before all of that, we read in Exodus chapter 16 as the whole congregation are complaining about the lack of food.

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Verse four, then the Lord said to Moses, behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you.

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And the people shall go out and gather a certain quota every day that I may test them whether they will walk in my law or not.

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So he hasn't given them the law yet. This is a pre -test.

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They give you at the beginning of a class. What do you know at the beginning of the class versus what you know at the end.

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This is a, let's see if they're going to follow my law or not. He's not given them the law.

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The 10 commandments have not yet been put down on the stone tablets and walked down the mountain and put into the ark of the covenant.

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This is what happens before. Now, what kind of a test is it that I'm hungry and then

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God sends miraculous bread from heaven? Well, that's not a hard test at all.

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I'm just going to eat the bread. I'm hungry. There's the bread. Thank you, God, for our daily bread.

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I'm just going to eat my food. But notice the test in verse five. And it shall be on the sixth day that they shall prepare what they bring in and it shall be twice as much as they gather daily.

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So in the first verse, you have the parameters. You're going to gather a certain amount each day, as much as you need.

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But on the sixth day, you're going to gather double. And this is the test.

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When God starts giving them daily bread, will they trust him to take just the amount that they need?

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Will they trust him? And will they trust him to gather double on the sixth day? Because on the seventh day, they're not going to go out and gather any at all because it's not coming.

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Are they going to test him? So are they going to trust him or are they going to not trust him?

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Okay, look in verse 16. Verse 16, Moses giving instructions to the children of Israel about the manna.

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This is the thing which the Lord has commanded. Let every man gather it according to each one's need, one omer for each person, according to the number of persons let every man take for those who are in his tent.

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Then the children of Israel did so and gathered some more, some less. So when they measured it by omers, he who gathered much had nothing left over and he who gathered little had no lack.

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Every man had gathered according to each one's need. So God provided the manna and even if the man went out there and maybe he had a bigger shovel than his neighbor to get all the manna, every time they gathered the manna, they ended up having just the amount that they needed.

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And verse 19, and Moses said, let no one leave any of it till morning. Now, why would you leave it till morning? Well, food's scarce, you know.

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We're not sure whether God's gonna give us manna tomorrow. So we're gonna leave some over just in case.

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This is our safety net. This is our plan B, just in case

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God doesn't send manna the next day or something happens and we're not able to gather the amount that we need.

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Verse 20, notwithstanding, they did not heed Moses, but some of them left part of it until morning and it bred worms and stank.

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And Moses was angry with them. Why? They failed the test. They didn't trust the

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Lord. Verse 21, so they gathered it every morning, every man according to his need, and when the sun became hot, it melted.

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So they'd go out in the morning and gather it. And so it was on the sixth day, here's the other part of the test, that they gathered twice as much bread, two omers for each one, and all the rulers of the congregation came and told

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Moses. Then he said to them, this is what the

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Lord has said. Tomorrow is a Sabbath rest, a holy

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Sabbath to the Lord. Bake what you will bake today, boil what you will boil, and lay up for yourselves all that remains to be kept until morning.

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So they laid it up till morning as Moses commanded, and it did not stink, nor were there any worms in it.

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Now, if it was Thursday, and you tried to gather two omers per person in your tent, and tried to leave it till the morning, it bred worms and stank.

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But if it was Friday, and you gathered two omers per person and left it till the morning, after baking it or boiling it or whatever you're doing,

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I forget what the musical artist was, but he had a really funny song about manna and all the different ways that they tried to cook it and how, yeah, how tired they got of it.

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But on the seventh day, look, there's no worms in it, it didn't stink,

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God preserved it. Then Moses said, eat that today, for today is a

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Sabbath to the Lord. Today you will not find it in the field. Six days you shall gather it, but on the seventh day, the

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Sabbath, there will be none. Okay, on the Sabbath day, no manna from heaven, no bread from heaven on the ground, so don't even go out.

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And whatever you were gonna do with the manna, go ahead and bake it and boil it the day before, because you're not gonna be building fires to bake or to boil on the

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Sabbath day. That was another part of the test. Will they trust

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God? Verse 27, now it happened that some of the people went out on the seventh day to gather, but they found none.

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And the Lord said to Moses, how long do you refuse to keep my commandments and my laws? Moses says, see, for the

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Lord has given you the Sabbath, therefore he gives you on the sixth day bread for two days.

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Let every man remain in his place. Let no man go out of his place on the seventh day.

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So the people rested on the seventh day. And of course, they put a little bit of the manna in the

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Ark of the Covenant. And this is before, this is before the giving of the commandments.

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This is before the covenant that God makes with Israel at Mount Sinai.

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So what do we find? We find that God brings the people of Israel up out of Egypt into the wilderness because he's keeping his promises to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

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And he provides for their safety and their sustenance in the wilderness. He's teaching them to depend upon him, to rest in him before he even makes covenant with him.

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Sabbath rest is initially commanded by God in this connection with the manna, the giving of the bread from heaven.

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They gathered at Double Mount on Friday. They didn't do anything on Saturday. Friday became known as Preparation Day in Jewish culture.

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So how did it work? What was it about? Each household, every man, according to his need, counting off how many people were in his household.

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That's how much manna he would bring in every day, except for Friday, gather at Double. Make sure you bake it and boil it on Friday because you're not gonna do any of that work on a

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Saturday. Do you see how the Sabbath instructions is about the management of the household?

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It's about how that household is gonna depend upon the Lord for his provision in their lives, how they're gonna trust him rather than themselves.

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Not gonna store it up overnight unless it's a Friday when you gather Double. Not gonna gather on a

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Saturday because God's gonna provide day by day by day. And not only is he gonna provide the bread and provide the opportunity for the work, he's gonna provide you the rest.

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Well, this is reflecting on something, right? Were there any instructions about food to Adam and Eve?

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Look at all the food I provide you. Eat freely from all of these trees in the garden.

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No, eat of that one. Eat freely of all these trees in the garden. But you're not gonna eat from that one.

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Food laws, right? God just instructed Adam and Eve to do what? To depend upon him, to trust him, to submit to him.

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That was just the way it is with the image of God. Love God supremely, love each other rightly, steward the creation responsibly.

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God provides and we trust him. That's just the way it works.

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So we see the precision of God's provision and the hesitancy, the unbelief among the people.

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Now, clearly without bread, all these people will die. There's no place to farm in the wilderness, no place to sow seed, no time to get the harvest in.

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And without this bread from heaven, they die. They need bread to live.

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God is the one who provides it, what they need every single day, but it is assured by God's promise and God's power and God's work, not theirs, so they rest every seventh day.

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To be reminded, this is entirely on the basis of God's provision.

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Let's turn over to John 6. In John 6,

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Jesus feeds the 5 ,000. And at the end of the feeding of the 5 ,000, when the men saw this sign, like, wow, he's just multiplying loaves of bread for us.

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They say, surely this is the prophet that has come into the world, the one that Moses talked about the true successor to Moses.

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How do they know that? Well, here comes the bread, right? Here we are out here in the wilderness and here comes the bread.

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Clearly, this Jesus of Nazareth is the great prophet, the successor of Moses. And Jesus realizes they're going to try to forcibly make him king, and so he leaves because they don't know what they're about to do.

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So he leaves and they follow him. They track him down. They stalk him.

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They find him. And when they find him, Jesus says to them in verse 26, most surely

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I say to you, you seek me not because you saw the signs, but because you ate of the loaves and were filled.

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Now, what does he say? Do not labor for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to everlasting life, which the son of man will give you because the father has set his seal on him.

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God's approval is upon the son of man. He's the one who gives eternal, everlasting life.

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And they're saying, okay, what work do we do? You just talked about labor, so what work are we supposed to do?

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And he says, no, no, no, it's not your work, it's God's work, and here's God's work that you believe, that you believe in him whom he sent.

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And then Jesus announces, I'm the bread of life. I'm the bread of heaven. What is he saying? I'm the manna, right?

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There was the shadow, which was manna. Christ is the substance, he's the bread of life.

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Jesus says, later on, you know, your forefathers ate of the bread from heaven, the manna in the wilderness, and then they perished.

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Remember, that whole generation was under the judgment of God. He said, but those who eat of me, those who were sustained by me, those who receive the life that I give, will live ever after.

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So Jesus is making a comparison, but also a contrast, because something greater than manna is here.

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He says, I am the bread of life. He who comes to me shall never hunger, and he who believes in me shall never thirst.

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They didn't like it that he said, I am the bread which came down from heaven.

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They took offense that he says, in verse 48, I am the bread of life. Verse 51,

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I am the living bread, which came down from heaven. What is the work that he does?

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He gives his flesh for the life of the world.

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He does the work. He does the work. He gives himself.

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And then what does he say? In verse 62, he says, what then if you should see the son of man ascend where he was before?

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Verse 63, it is the spirit who gives life. And notice what it says in verse 63, the flesh profits nothing.

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The words that I speak to you are spirit and they are life. The flesh profits nothing.

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The spirit gives life. They're saying, what work do we do?

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He said, no, not your work, God's work. We want more bread, not that bread,

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I'm the bread from heaven. What is he saying? He's saying, I'm the manna, and you don't receive

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God's true manna by work. God does the work, I accomplish the work.

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The flesh profits nothing. So you see how manna and Sabbath, the bread of life, and the rest that we have in the accomplished work of Christ come together.

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The bread of life. Now there's a lot we need to talk about in future opportunities, but we need to talk about the scope of the sign, the significance of the sign, and the strictness of the sign.

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What we're going to discover as we study how the Sabbath was given to Israel, we're going to see that God says that this is the sign of the covenant he makes with Israel in the wilderness, and that it pertains particularly to the household, and that it matters for days, and for feasts, and for years, and we're going to see that it pertains to them trusting in God's provision in everything, so they do not trust in themselves or trust in other gods, and then we're going to see how strict it was.

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Like many of the other 10 commandments, to disobey that commandment means death. It was capital punishment for breaking the

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Sabbath. I think the homework last week was to think about picking up sticks.

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So Numbers 15 verses 30 through 36. This reference right here,

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Numbers 15, 30 through 36, is a story about a man who went out on the Sabbath and he picked up sticks, and for this he was executed.

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That's how strict it was if you were going to remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy.

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That's what it means to keep the Sabbath day, is that kind of strictness. That it mattered on the individual level, that a man or a woman could die for breaking the

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Sabbath individually, but when the nation broke the Sabbath together and did not pursue that, that even greater punishment would come.

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So we're going to look at all of that. Just an observation of how we're doing our whole study about the 10 commandments, and why these are 10 words about Christ, is that when we're reading through the

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Bible, in our yearly Bible reading, or we are picking up the word of God to study, and we're in some area of the scripture, we are in the process of reading something about the story about the first Adam and the second

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Adam. And we have this arrangement in the scriptures where when we look through the

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Old Testament, and we look through the Old Covenant, or the covenants as they are often called together, we're looking at the shadow of Christ.

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Paul says, there's the shadows, but Christ is the substance, or the soma, the body. As the light of God's revelation shines upon Christ, there is this long, stretched out, weird -looking shadow throughout the entirety of the

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Old Testament. But no matter where you are in the Old Testament, you're looking at the shadow, which, if you trace it and follow it, goes back to the feet of Jesus.

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And that's what we see no matter if we're reading about the first Adam in Genesis, early

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Genesis, or if we're reading about the covenants that God makes with his servants, or often they're called his sons, identified as in the position of a son.

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So God makes a covenant with Noah and Abraham, Israel and David. We see them making particular sacrifices. Noah offers a sacrifice, which is a soothing aroma.

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How often do we read about that in the life of Israel? Or in the life of Abraham, or with David?

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Do you remember God smelling the aroma of the sacrifice, a soothing aroma, a play on the word

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Noah? Rest, that there is reconciliation and peace. Abraham offers sacrifices to the

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Lord, even ready to sacrifice his own son Isaac upon the altar, but then God offers the substitute. Israel was to offer up sacrifices to God, both daily and as the occasion merited it, or during the feasts, they offered up sacrifice after sacrifice after sacrifice to God.

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Does anybody remember David's sacrifice that he offered? He offered up sacrifices, but at the very end of 2

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Samuel, what do we see him doing? He buys a threshing floor of Aguilera and offers up sacrifice, interceding for the entirety of Israel that was under the judgment of God.

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And Noah offers his, Noah, who is God's servant with whom he's working to make this covenant, offers up his sacrifice in the mountains of Ararat.

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The mountains of Ararat. Abraham offers his up on Mount Moriah. God makes covenant with Israel, with Noah in the mountains of Ararat, makes covenant with Abraham and confirms it on Mount Moriah, makes covenant with Israel on Mount Sinai, and makes covenant with David on Mount Zion.

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All of this is looking back, right? So the redemptive covenant, the biblical redemptive covenant is a restoring and revealing relationship that the creator formalizes with man.

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So what we're doing in all of these things is looking back to the way it was at Eden on the mountain from where the river flows and how man was in communion with God, right relationship with God, right relationship with God and communion with God.

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And then after that, as God starts making covenants with his servants, it's all about being in right relationship.

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So we have sacrifice after sacrifice after sacrifice until we finally come to the substance who is

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Christ, who said, this is my blood of the new covenant, which is shed for the remission of sins, for the forgiveness of sins to bring us back into right relationship with God.

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The Sabbath is the sign of the covenant God makes with Israel.

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And so when we study the Sabbath and we go through all these passages, I want us to keep that in mind.

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Before God made the covenant with Israel, he already established what the Sabbath was about as he gave them manna from heaven.

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He already had established what it was all about. It was about trusting him for his provision to give them life, to rest in him.

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What would it mean, final thought, what would it mean for later on in the life of Israel, what would it mean for a man to go out and work on the

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Sabbath day and gather in some figs? What would it mean for a man, for a whole household, a man and his wife and children and his servants, on that seventh year, that Sabbath year, go out and plow the ground anyway, sow the seed anyway, and get that harvest in on that seventh year?

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What would that mean? Not trusting

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God, right? Not trusting God, trusting in the self, trying to labor to make it happen rather than resting in God, recognizing his provision.

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If a man would do that, or if Israel, the tribes would do that, if they didn't trust

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God for provision, and they determined good and evil for themselves, and eat the forbidden fruit, right?

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Forbidden fruit, which you would gather in on the seventh day or the seventh year. If you were to do that, and do that over and over and over again, as God's servant, as God's son