Exodus: Unity of Law and Grace

Manna

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Pentateuch

Lesson: Manna

Genre: Lessons with Q & A

Track: 051

Dictation Name: RR171AB51

Location/Venue:

Year: Early 70’s

Let us worship God. Serve the Lord with gladness, come before His presence with singing. Enter into His gates with thanksgiving and into His courts with praise. Be thankful unto Him and bless His name, for the Lord is good. His mercy is everlasting and His truth endureth to all generations. Let us pray.

Oh Lord, our God, who art ever merciful and gracious to those that seek thy face. We come into thy presence mindful of the tide of evil rising against thy kingdom, against thy people, but mindful also, Lord, that thou art on the throne, and it is thy will that shall be done, and thy kingdom that shall prevail and triumph. Make us therefore strong in thy spirit and word, that in the face of all these things, we may be more than conquerors, and that we may stand, and in thy spirit and power, prevail. Grant us this, we beseech thee in Christ’s name, amen.

Our scripture this morning is Exodus 16:9-21, and our subject: Manna. Exodus 16:9-21. “And Moses spake unto Aaron, Say unto all the congregation of the children of Israel, Come near before the LORD: for he hath heard your murmurings. And it came to pass, as Aaron spake unto the whole congregation of the children of Israel, that they looked toward the wilderness, and, behold, the glory of the LORD appeared in the cloud. And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying, I have heard the murmurings of the children of Israel: speak unto them, saying, At even ye shall eat flesh, and in the morning ye shall be filled with bread; and ye shall know that I am the LORD your God. And it came to pass, that at even the quails came up, and covered the camp: and in the morning the dew lay round about the host. 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 hoar 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 are in his tents. And the children of Israel did so, and gathered, some more, some less. And when they did mete it with an omer, he that gathered much had nothing over, and he that gathered little had no lack; they gathered every man according to his eating. And Moses said, Let no man leave of it till the morning. Notwithstanding they hearkened not unto Moses; but some of them left of it until the morning, and it bred worms, and stank: and Moses was wroth with them. And they gathered it every morning, every man according to his eating: and when the sun waxed hot, it melted.”

The episode of manna is one that has captured the imagination of peoples. The incident is one that has lingered in the memory of peoples other than Christian and Hebrew. Many of the peoples in the Arabian Peninsula do have recollections of this fact, and all kinds of naturalistic explanations abound and have abounded over the generations.

God promised Israel bread from heaven to satisfy their hunger. In john 6:31-35, our Lord tells Israel that He is the true manna, the bread from heaven. “I am the bread of life. He that cometh to me shall never hunger.” In Deuteronomy 8:3, Moses reminds Israel that, “Man doth not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord doth man life.” Our Lord, in the temptation of the wilderness restates this, declaring, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.” But Israel was not ready to believe that.

There are some parallels to this episode. Adam was tempted in paradise and he failed the test. Israel, with every evidence of God’s power and blessings, was tested in the wilderness and failed. Our Lord was also tested {?} triumphantly. Israel failed by its murmuring, or grumbling the word can be rendered, in its distrust of God. The plagues, the Red Sea crossing, and much more had not made Israel either grateful or ready to trust God.

Second, Israel failed again when it distrusted God’s word even when He was blessing them. Failure to believe that God’s manna provision would come daily six days in seven was a distrust of God Himself, and it was indicative of no small depravity.

The daily provision of manna was one omer, about two quarters per person. To collect two quarters per person of the small manna was back-breading work. This was a miraculous provision, but it was not welfare-ism. It required very real work. God was not handing them something. Even when He performed a miracle, they had to get out there and work.

The manna is described in verse 14 as small as the hoar frost on the ground. It became visible as the dew lifted. The manna was thus somewhat frosted. On the evening before the first appearance of manna, a cloud of quails descended on the camp and became a ready source of meat. Again, work was involved. Work in catching and cleansing the quail. The quail miracle was not repeated like the manna, which was repeated, except for the episode in Numbers 11. Of the daily miracle of the manna, Joseph Parker, well over a century ago, wrote, and I quote, “Observe how the most astonishing miracles go for nothing. Then the miracles were nothing to those who observed them. They were applauded at the time, they sent a little thrill through those who looked upon them with eyes more or less vacant and meaningless. But as the solid result, educational virtue and excellence, the miracles might as well not have been wrought at all. It was the same in the day of Christ. All His miracles went for nothing amongst many of the people who observed them. A miracle is a wonder, and a wonder cannot be permanent. Wonders soon dropped into common places and that which astounded at first lulls at last. Yea, that which excited a kind of groping faith made by repetition soon come to excite doubts and skepticism and fear. What wonder then if the miracles, having thus gone down in importance and value, the most splendid personal services followed in their wake. There is a necessary logic here. This is a sequence that cannot be broken.” Parker was right. Fallen man treats miracles as his due, and too often, the Christian believes they are his daily due. We are all the recipients of daily manna care, and we fail to recognize it.

It is worth noting that the usually very skeptical scholars admit that the plagues in Egypt and the Red Sea Crossing, and the manna miracle have some historical basis. There are too many things that point to the fact that some how or other, all of this did take place. But they exert every effort to find naturalistic causes, and this should not surprise us. When men ascribe the origin of the universe to chance, they will certainly not hesitate to call lesser miracles accidental and naturalistic.

The Israelites who distrusted God’s providence, attempted to gather manna for two days or more, found that left overnight, the manna bred worms and stank, according to verse 20. And Moses was rightfully angry with them for their distrust of God and His miraculous provision.

Now this distrust is all the more striking, coming immediately after the revelation of the glory of the Lord in verse 10. We are not given a description of this manifestation, but we are told that all Israel witnessed it, the gift of the quail and the manna was a part of this revelation of God, and it came not many days after the Red Sea crossing, within a year of all the ten plagues upon Egypt, but it did not change their distrust, their unbelief.

Apparently the dew fell at night, then manna came on the dew as small seed-like flakes and again, dew over it. Manna is remembered more than once in subsequent biblical history. Our Lord’s comments tell us much about its meaning. In the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 6:31-34, He declares, “Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knowest that ye have need of all these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.”

But trusting God comes hard for man. Man prefers to trust in himself. From man’s perspective, God is usually a failure because He does not satisfy man. This is why so many do not believe in God, “What has He done for me lately?” Moreover, men resent what they cannot control, no matter how rich or blessed it may make them, and when God blesses man, it’s not something man controls. It’s the free gift of God, and this men do not want. I’ve known men who’ve refused to pray because that would be to acknowledge that God has to give him something which is, he feels, his due. Blessings, never satisfy men.

Now, some of us here, I know, are very fond on salmon, and at least one of you is not. Well, it is interesting to note that in one time in Scotland, when salmon were so plentiful that it was the cheapest of all foods, servants, before taking a position with someone, would give a condition. “Salmon not more than once a day.” [laughs] A French expression is very similar. “Partridge, again?” Well, man does not like too much of a good thing apparently, especially if it is given to him. Perhaps because the manna, bread, or food from heaven came between two layers of dew, the dews in memory of the event would sometimes, on ceremonial occasions, place bread on the table between two cloths, and it is likely that our Lord refers to this practice when He speaks to Himself as “the hidden manna, our food which the world cannot see.”

One of the clearest implications of this incident comes from the fact that the manna was by God’s ordination, highly perishable, except when collected on the day before for the Sabbath, and the meaning is this: Blessings cannot be hoarded. To put a greater trust in our own providence above God’s providence is a sin, a serious moral evil. God is not absent-minded nor forgetful as men too often assume.

Elijah rightfully ridiculed the prophets of Baal saying, “Cry aloud: for he [is] a god; either he is talking, or he is pursuing, or he is in a journey, [or] peradventure he sleepeth, and must be awaked.” It is far worse for us to treat the living God in this way. God gave blessings to Israel. They demanded them as their right, and they distrusted Him even as he gave them. For this, they perished in the wilderness, and a like attitude, the modern church will perish in the wilderness if it does not mend its ways. Let us pray.

Our Father, thy word is truth. And thy blessings, thy mercies are new every morning. Open our eyes that we may see thy ways, thy blessings, and thy providential care. Give us grace to know how dependent we are upon thee every moment of our lives. To rejoice that our lives are in thy hands, and not our own. Make us strong in thy service, grateful for thy care, and joyful for our future in Christ. In His name we pray, amen.

Are there any questions now about our lesson? Yes?

[Audience] I noticed when I visited Communist lands, Christians seem to be much more dependent upon God than we are in the west. They don’t trust the state for their provision because the state does not provide as promised. They can’t rely on themselves because they don’t have the resources. They’re forced almost to rely daily for provision on God, and it’s been that situation I observed the daily occurrence of miracles for daily existence.

[Rushdoony] Yes. And there are incidents taking place behind the Iron Curtain which, apparently even Communist officials regard as miracles. They don’t publicize them, they can’t account for them. One of the Americans who was in the Gulag witnessed an amazing, an almost staggering miracle. It involved three nuns who refused to work for the Soviets and were put out to freeze to death. And he said as he was shipped to other camps, when he arrived they would ask him, “You come from that camp? Did it really happen?” and they would press him for details and shake their heads in amazement, but the news of it had gone through all the camps, and that kind of instant has been reported by more than one person. So, it has been because of their reliance on God and their radical faith that they are, indeed, living with hidden manna provisions. Yes?

[Audience] Well, in that category, perhaps it would be just as well for the Christian community of the United States to cease getting any favors from the government.

[Rushdoony] In terms of tax exemptions?

[Audience] In terms of exemption.

[Rushdoony] No. that has an ancient history, it goes back to the early church, and the premise is that the state is not sovereign, that the state must recognize the sovereignty of God and that which is God’s realm, His embassy, cannot be taxed. We do not tax ambassadors. Anyone who is connected, let us say, with the British, or the Russian, or the French embassy, or that of the smallest country in the world is tax exempt, pays no income tax, pays no taxes of any kind, nor property tax, because they represent a bit of foreign soil on American territory, and whatever place they purchase is therefore a bit of their country. Now, all the Greek terms used in the New Testament as they apply to the church use the same language. The very idea of a parish, the word as it goes back to the early church, has the same connotation. Paul says we are ambassadors of Christ. So that the thesis of the church was, and it was one that goes back to the Old Testament, in Ezra 7 we have a clear recognition of it in the rescript of a ha suerez{?}, namely that what God establishes as His embassy in the world cannot be subject to the controls of the state.

[Audience] I’m not disputing that.

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Audience] What I’m saying is that it might be better for the Christian community if the state appears more nakedly as its enemy.

[Rushdoony] Yes, and it’s going to be difficult before long for the state not to appear as the enemy. It’s taken a considerable amount of blindness to-date for people to fail to see that, and it is incredible the extent to which people will blind themselves.

[Audience] In an attempt to defend what remains of the separate church from the state.

[Rushdoony] Yes.

[Audience] The church has put up with far too much.

[Rushdoony] I couldn’t agree more, and been absurd in the kind of things it has sought to defend.

[Audience] But the way the state sets up their taxes, it’s like the statement, “Tax is,” and then the state determines who’s exempt from tax, and in most cases the state says the church is exempt the tax, that’s an error. The state has no right to exempt the church. The church is an is separate from the state, and by the state saying the church is exempt then the state brings the church within their realm.

[Rushdoony] Yes. The origin of incorporation within this country is that after we became independent from Britain, we no longer had an established church. Before, according to law, all churches were a part of the Church of England, whether they had, in theory, separated themselves. They were strictly, legally the property of the crown, because everything was the property of the crown, and you held your land on a tenure from the crown, which could at any time, by eminent domain, expropriate it. Well, with independence then, the churches immediately began to incorporate. A totally new thing in this country, and the idea was, “We are a separate body.” Corporate means “body,” it comes from the Latin corpore, and they would serve notice to the state after they declared themselves to be a body, that “we are a body that is God’s realm or body on earth, and it outside your taxation powers.” Now, that prevailed until World War 2. Since World War 2, the IRS and the Supreme Court have been whittling away at that and have turned the whole thing around and to say that the tax exempt status is a subsidy, that incorporation means that not a notification but you are subject to state control. Well, there are some who assume that the way out of that is to disincorporate the church, and you have in the country today an association of unincorporated churches, and they are very foolish in this because at any time, the board members, the elders, trustees, or the pastor, or the treasurer, all collectively can be hit by the IRS, for income tax evasion for all the money that has been collected over the years. And of course, this was how they put Moon, of the Moonies, in prison. Not because he had ever appropriated the money for personal uses, but it had been while they were waiting for incorporation when they first came over here, banked in his name. So, we have seen a major legal revolution since World War 2. In effect what we did was to buy the philosophy of the Nazis and the Marxists. In that respect, World War 2 was a major disaster for us. Yes?

[Audience] When did the practice of making donations to churches tax deductable, when did that start?

[Rushdoony] That has always been the case.

[Audience] Kind of opened the door as soon as you make donations tax deductible, when you have to, churches then have to ask for the tax exempt status from the government, and then that’s what starts the …

[Rushdoony] Yes, but you see, up until recently you didn’t ask for it. You simply declared yourself to be a church and then you were beyond the power of the state to tax you, investigate you, or do anything to you, unless you became involved in criminal activities. But this is a recent claim that it is an exemption that has been given by the state, whereas, in reality, it is an exemption because It is outside the power of the state. What we have had is a totally new mentality, in that now the state feels it has universal jurisdiction, and this idea was once very foreign in this country, and Otto and I are old enough to remember when it did not apply.

[Audience] The idea was that the state was limited.

[Rushdoony] Yes, it was very limited in its powers. In fact, there was a time when, not only did you never know of a federal official in your area, but you didn’t even know of a state official. All you had was a local official and they were few and far between. In fact, before World War 2, we had so small an army, that an officer therein, Colonel Joseph Denton, a very remarkable man, whom I baptized into the church, could remember when it was only twenty thousand men and he knew every last one of them. Yes?

[Audience] Should the state ever choose to tax away tax exemption from the churches, what’s the responsibility of the Christian? Do we say then our calling is to God and we stand {?} against the law? What’s our….

[Rushdoony] Oh, we have to fight it, we have to appeal it.

[Audience] Would we have to practice civil disobedience then?

[Rushdoony] No, we have to first take the course of working through the law to overturn it. The only way these things are happening is because Christians are indifferent. Here we are, according to the statics of pollsters, representing sixty or more percentage of the adult population. We represent also the substantial people of this country, the responsible ones, the ones who vote more often than anyone else. But we never vote in terms of Christian considerations. For example, David Rocket, who is one of the people on our mailing list, and an economic writer, has called attention to the fact that a very limited segment of the left-wing community has instituted sanctions on a number of things, such as against South Africa, against corporations that deal with them, against colleges and universities that have their stock, and they’ve been, despite a minor failure here and there, very effective in doing so. But he’s also pointed out that there are corporations, and most of the drug companies now, experimenting with fetuses, and using them in their products. But is any Christian, apart from David Rocket, called for a disinvestment in those companies? And he’s cited a vast number of areas where there’s a heavy investment in pornography, in abortion-related things and so on, by some major corporations through subsidiaries, and yet no Christian will move against those companies by a concerted boycott. David Wildemon has called for one or two things like against Holiday Inns, but that is limited. The Christian community is indifferent too often. I’m glad that it is beginning to wake up to these issues, but a great deal more needs to be done. So, it would take the Christian community simply waking up to these issues to put a stop to them. I believe we are moving towards that. Yes?

[Audience] I think I missed the, what was the miracle on the three nuns in the Gulag?

[Rushdoony] I couldn’t hear.

[Audience] The three nuns in the Gulag that were…

[Rushdoony] Oh, I didn’t go into it, but they were put out in an arctic area Gulag in zero and subzero weather to die because they refused to work, and they did not even get frostbite, even though they were put out there without coats, or anything. They were put out to die, and they said, “We will not work for this godless state.” They put them out day after day, all day long, and nothing happened, and finally the commandant was so really terrified by the whole thing that he brought them in and never bothered them again. They just got their food and were left alone. They were not people he wanted to see. He didn’t want to be reminded of the miracle in that episode, and news of that went throughout the Communist party, created consternation.

Well, our time is up. Let us conclude now with prayer.

Oh Lord, our God, how great and marvelous are thy ways, and how sure thy government, and how bumbling and ineffectual our services often are. Arouse thy church, oh Lord, from its slumbers and make it again an army for thy kingdom, to the end that we may triumph in Christ and bring all things into captivity to Him. And now go in peace. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost bless you and keep you, guide and protect you this day and always. Amen.

End of tape.