And the children of Israel said to them, “Oh, that we had died by the hand of Jehovah in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the pots of meat, when we ate bread to the full! For you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.” (Exo. 16:3)
We are now tempted a third time to give up our journey. We find that the life of religion is all work and no play; it’s no fun. In our former lives, even if we were unhappy much of the time, at least we were happy some of the time and had some fun even though it made us feel guilty. But doing good is hard work with little reward and lots of sacrifice. Time and again during our difficult journey, we will fondly remember the very things that that made us leave in the first place.
The Lord does not abandon us there. Instead, the Lord provides new delights and new pleasures that will sustain us until we reach the final destination. While starting to live our new lives leaves us hungry for the lower or baser pleasures of the “flesh” we once enjoyed, the Lord satisfies that craving with the “bread from heaven” or the higher delights coming from the good we are doing.
Our hunger is the feeling that when our delights are gone, our very life is gone—we love the fun and excitement of evil. When we give that up, it feels like we’ll never have fun or experience pleasure ever again. We wish to return to the evil that we think would be delightful again. But we can persevere with the help of the Lord: He provides new delights that, while not as impassioned as those we left, provide enough to satisfy us and allow us to continue. We overcome this temptation when we seek to find delight in the new life that the Lord is giving us.
To see that this is true, read Exodus 16:1-8, John 3:1-6, and Secrets of Heaven 8413, listen to the full audio sermon, and then spend a week on the following task:
Acknowledge and show gratitude for the blessings the Lord brings into your life every day.
This week look for the ways the Lord is present in each day. Keep your eyes, mind, and heart open. Look for the manna. When you feel empty and spiritually hungry for happiness in your life, pray “give us this day our daily bread. Lord help me to recognize the bread (goodness and blessings) in my life.” When counting your blessings, it is also important to take action and make your gratitude known. It is useful not only to think about how we appreciate someone, but to actually show our appreciation. The same is true with God. Take time to talk about the blessings in your life with others. Take time to praise Him for His great gifts.
This sermon is part 5 of 8 in our series, “The Journey: Realizing Spiritual Freedom”, and is on the subject of receiving daily blessings from the Lord. Check back next week for part 5, which will be about offering and accepting support which helps to focus on the Lord. For more information on the Journey, please contact us. To sign up for an online version, click here.
And they journeyed from Elim, and all the congregation of the children of Israel came to the Wilderness of Sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month after they departed from the land of Egypt. Then the whole congregation of the children of Israel complained against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness. And the children of Israel said to them, “Oh, that we had died by the hand of Jehovah in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the pots of meat and when we ate bread to the full! For you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.”
Then Jehovah said to Moses, “Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you. 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. 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.”
Then Moses and Aaron said to all the children of Israel, “At evening you shall know that Jehovah has brought you out of the land of Egypt. And in the morning you shall see the glory of Jehovah; for He hears your complaints against Jehovah. But what are we, that you complain against us?“ Also Moses said, “This shall be seen when Jehovah gives you meat to eat in the evening, and in the morning bread to the full; for Jehovah hears your complaints which you make against Him. And what are we? Your complaints are not against us but against Jehovah.”
John 3:1-6
There was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. This man came to Jesus by night and said to Him, “Rabbi, we know that You are a teacher come from God; for no one can do these signs that You do unless God is with him.”
Jesus answered and said to him, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
Nicodemus said to Him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?”
Jesus answered, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.”
Secrets of Heaven 8413
‘To kill all this congregation with hunger’ means that they were perishing owing to the lack of delight and of good. This is clear from the meaning of ‘killing’ as depriving of life, at this point life made up of delight and good, for a person’s life consists in these, dealt with in 3607, 6767; from the meaning of ‘congregation’ as those belonging to the spiritual Church, dealt with in 7843; and from the meaning of ‘hunger’ or ‘famine’ as a lack of good, dealt with in 5893, at this point the good of lower pleasures, meant by ‘bread’ in 8410. For when that which nourishes spiritual life, or the life of the spirit, is taken away, hunger or famine occurs.
A brief statement showing the nature of all this needs to be made. When the good of charity, which is to constitute a spiritual life, is to be installed, the delight belonging to lower pleasures, which has constituted a natural life, is taken away. And when this delight is taken away the person enters into temptation. The person thinks that if he is deprived of the delight which belongs to those pleasures he is deprived of all life; for the life of his natural has consisted in that delight or good as he calls it. But he does not know that when this delight in which his life has consisted is taken away the Lord instills spiritual delight and good instead; and this good is what is meant by ‘the manna’. The previous kind of good or delight is meant by ‘flesh and bread in the land of Egypt’, and the deprivation of it by ‘hunger’.
But it should be thoroughly understood that a person undergoing regeneration is not deprived of the delight belonging to bodily and mental pleasures, for after regeneration he has full enjoyment of such delight, fuller than he had before, but in inverse proportion. Before regeneration the delight that belongs to lower pleasures was the all of that life; but after regeneration the good of charity becomes the all of life, and when it does so the delight belonging to lower pleasures serves as a means, as something embodying spiritual good and the happiness and bliss that go with it. When therefore order is to be inverted, the previous delight belonging to lower pleasures fades away and ceases to be anything, and a new delight from a spiritual origin is instilled instead.
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