Angels' Food

Psalm 78:25

This verse is not referring to the sponge-like sweet treat that is often served as a dessert in America and called “Angel Food Cake”. Believe me, this food was much better! What a delightful vision we get in the words, “Man did eat angels’ food”. When did this blessed event occur? Who were these men? And, can we expect to eat this food as well?

The answer begins in the wilderness between Egypt and Mt. Sinai, where Israel began to whine to Moses about the lack of food in the desert. God opened the windows of heaven as they slept and rained down bread upon the earth. When they awoke the next morning, they looked outside of their tents and saw the small substance covering the ground around them. They said, “Manna?” meaning, “what is it?” in Hebrew. The name stuck, and manna had become their provision.

The provision of the manna was given as a gift of God, with no performance required on the part of the Jews. They simply collected it every day and twice as much on the day before the Sabbath. They did not plant the seed, nor cultivate the ground nor pray for rain. They need not harvest or grind the wheat to bake it into bread; it simply existed every morning of their lives. This was grace in the form of bread and each man could have as much or as little as he so desired (Exodus 16:16-18).

Jeremiah said that the Lord’s compassions fail not, “They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness” (Lamentations 3:22). Just as the bread was new every morning for Israel, the compassions and mercies of God are new every morning for each of us. We have a day-to-day, fresh provision from heaven for our day-to-day problems!

Jesus called Himself, “the bread of life” (John 6:48). We consume a little more of Him each day, giving us a spiritual diet of His beauty and loveliness. Just as manna came from heaven, Jesus is our spiritual manna, and we consume His mercy and goodness to get us through each day. Notice that we do not consume things OF Jesus, but rather we actually consume Jesus Himself. Feast on who He is, not just what He can do.

After growing wearied by the wilderness journey following the giving of the law on Mt. Sinai, Israel begins to look around at the things of the world around them. Their eyes glaze over with lust at the things that the heathen nations had nearby, and their longing and desire for the Lord began to wane. As soon as they desired something else, the manna began to be viewed as “worthless bread” (Numbers 21:5). Had the manna changed? Absolutely not, but their perception of it had. When other things steal your affection, the lovely Jesus will seem a little less lovely than before.

Angels wish that they could eat what the redeemed can eat! You have the sacrificed Lamb of God to consume each day. No angel has ever been redeemed by the precious blood of Jesus, but you have. No angel has been transformed from one creation into a brand new creation, but you have. No angel can know the joy of sins forgiven or the bliss of having no wrongs counted against them, but you do. Christian, you are most blessed, because you not only eat angels’ food; you eat better than they do, for you eat of Christ. Hallelujah!

Manna

Exodus 16:31-36

Manna means, “what is it?” in Hebrew, and that is exactly what the Israelites said when they saw this small, white piece of bread on the ground, given by God as their provision. What an amazing gift this was, for here is their daily portion of food and they do not have to grow it, cultivate it, water it, feed it or sweat over it. God gives them all that they need, everyday through absolutely no goodness on their part. All they must do is reach down and pick it up every day.

Manna is a perfect picture of God’s grace. It is given without regard to whether the recipient has earned it and all one must do to have it is pick it up. In spiritual terms, picking it up is believing and receiving. Simply believe that God has provided it for you and that you are made worthy to receive it by the blood of the New Covenant and you can then take all that you need.

Just as manna was new every day, the blessings of God in Jesus Christ are fresh and new everyday as well. The prophet Jeremiah wrote, “It is of the LORD’s mercies that we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness” (Lamentations 3:22, 23). Israel was forbidden from taking extra manna to last into the next day, with the eve of the Sabbath being an obvious exception. God did this so that they were never eating yesterday’s blessing. Jesus wishes for His church to feed on Him and His goodness on a daily basis; not surviving on last Sunday morning’s blessing.

Jesus said that as the manna fell in the wilderness, feeding the children of Israel, so He is the bread of life sent to feed the church. “I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world” (John 6:51). Our spiritual bread is the broken body of Jesus Christ, which we partake of every time that we realize what Calvary accomplished for us. We now feed on His finished work on the cross, with all of our sins having been punished in His body, and all of our sickness having been paid for in Him. This is glorious food for the believer, for it takes all that is wrong with us and puts it in Jesus, so that we can be truly free.

God told Moses to fill an omer of manna to be placed into the Ark of the Covenant. An omer was the tenth part of an ephah (Exodus 16:36), and an ephah was a day’s worth of manna. In other words, God instructed Moses to put 1/10 of a day’s worth of manna into the Ark. This 1/10 is also called the tithe, denoting that God put the tithe into the Ark in the form of manna. Everything inside of the Ark was covered over by the mercy seat which was covered in blood. The blood sealed everything inside, freeing man from whatever its contents held over him. Israel placed the tithe of manna, Aaron’s rod that budded and the 10 Commandments into the Ark. Since these items are inside the Ark, they cannot be held against us again.

This means that we are free from the tithe, the 10 Commandments and the authority of man. Though free from every one of these, we still live them out through our righteousness: tithing by revelation of how good our God is; living the moral code of God through the finished work of Christ; and submitting ourselves to the authorities of the world and the church. All bondage to works has been placed beneath the blood and now we feed on the heavenly bread, Jesus Christ.

The Serpent of Brass

Numbers 21:5-9

Without a proper understanding of precisely what happened to Jesus at the cross, this story of the brazen serpent on the pole makes no sense. First, how could looking at anything affixed to a pole bring healing in the body? Second, and perhaps most important, why would God chose a snake as His symbol? Every Sunday school student knows that the snake first appears in the Garden of Eden and that he is a cursed creature.

To answer these questions, we must realize what happened in this story and why. The Israelites were complaining to Moses about the lack of water and their weariness with manna. They call it “light” in the King James Version, but the word is “worthless” in Hebrew. They are so sickened by God’s provision that they deem it as “worthless”.

In response, God allows “fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and much people of Israel died” (Numbers 21:6). Remember, this incident occurs while the Israelites are under the Law, thus the Old Covenant must be honored. Though they are undeserving of any mercy, the Israelites beg Moses to ask the Lord to “take away the serpents from us”.

God instructs Moses to make a fiery serpent and place it upon a pole. Every person who has been bit can look upon it and they are promised life. Moses obeys, forming the serpent out of brass, and God honors His promise to heal all who gaze upon it. Jesus speaks of this incident in His conversation with Nicodemus when He says, “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up: that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life” (John 3:14, 15). Jesus places Himself in the position of the brazen serpent, stating that He will be lifted up, which happens at Calvary. He then substitutes the “looking upon the serpent” with “whosoever believeth”. Where the Israelites were simply told to look upon the snake and they would live, Jesus states that people will have to “believe in him”. This is the role of faith in your salvation, and it is the answer to the first question that we posed: How could looking at anything affixed to a pole bring healing in the body? Your faith in what Jesus did at Calvary brings healing and redemption from the poison of sin.

That leaves us with the second question: Why would God chose a snake as His symbol? The serpent is a symbol of sin having been judged, thus it is brass, which comes from being placed in the fire. Jesus was made to be sin for us at the cross (2 Corinthians 5:21), and He bore the curse of sin, just as a serpent is cursed (Galatians 3:13). By showing Israel a serpent of brass, God was saying that the curse of sin will be judged, and that this judgment would provide redemption for all who believed. Jesus fulfilled this to perfection, bearing the blow of death that was meant for us, so that we might have eternal life.

This incident came to a head when Jesus proclaimed, “My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46). Jesus never calls His Father, “God” except at this moment, for it is the first and last time that He has been separated from Him by our sins. God could not continue fellowship with Jesus in that moment, prompting Jesus to address Him as “God”, so that we could always address Him as “Father”.

Thank God for that serpent of brass, cursed for you and for me!

Angels' Food

Psalm 78:25

This verse is not referring to the sponge-like sweet treat that is often served as a dessert in America and called “Angel Food Cake”. Believe me, this food was much better! What a delightful vision we get in the words, “Man did eat angels’ food”. When did this blessed event occur? Who were these men? And, can we expect to eat this food as well?

The answer begins in the wilderness between Egypt and Mt. Sinai, where Israel began to whine to Moses about the lack of food in the desert. God opened the windows of heaven as they slept and rained down bread upon the earth. When they awoke the next morning, they looked outside of their tents and saw the small substance covering the ground around them. They said, “Manna?” meaning, “what is it?” in Hebrew. The name stuck, and manna had become their provision.

The provision of the manna was given as a gift of God, with no performance required on the part of the Jews. They simply collected it every day and twice as much on the day before the Sabbath. They did not plant the seed, nor cultivate the ground nor pray for rain. They need not harvest or grind the wheat to bake it into bread; it simply existed every morning of their lives. This was grace in the form of bread and each man could have as much or as little as he so desired (Exodus 16:16-18).

Jeremiah said that the Lord’s compassions fail not, “They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness” (Lamentations 3:22). Just as the bread was new every morning for Israel, the compassions and mercies of God are new every morning for each of us. We have a day-to-day, fresh provision from heaven for our day-to-day problems!

Jesus called Himself, “the bread of life” (John 6:48). We consume a little more of Him each day, giving us a spiritual diet of His beauty and loveliness. Just as manna came from heaven, Jesus is our spiritual manna, and we consume His mercy and goodness to get us through each day. Notice that we do not consume things OF Jesus, but rather we actually consume Jesus Himself. Feast on who He is, not just what He can do.

After growing wearied by the wilderness journey following the giving of the law on Mt. Sinai, Israel begins to look around at the things of the world around them. Their eyes glaze over with lust at the things that the heathen nations had nearby, and their longing and desire for the Lord began to wane. As soon as they desired something else, the manna began to be viewed as “worthless bread” (Numbers 21:5). Had the manna changed? Absolutely not, but their perception of it had. When other things steal your affection, the lovely Jesus will seem a little less lovely than before.

Angels wish that they could eat what the redeemed can eat! You have the sacrificed Lamb of God to consume each day. No angel has ever been redeemed by the precious blood of Jesus, but you have. No angel has been transformed from one creation into a brand new creation, but you have. No angel can know the joy of sins forgiven or the bliss of having no wrongs counted against them, but you do. Christian, you are most blessed, because you not only eat angels’ food; you eat better than they do, for you eat of Christ. Hallelujah!

Manna

Exodus 16:31-36

Manna means, “what is it?” in Hebrew, and that is exactly what the Israelites said when they saw this small, white piece of bread on the ground, given by God as their provision. What an amazing gift this was, for here is their daily portion of food and they do not have to grow it, cultivate it, water it, feed it or sweat over it. God gives them all that they need, everyday through absolutely no goodness on their part. All they must do is reach down and pick it up every day.

Manna is a perfect picture of God’s grace. It is given without regard to whether the recipient has earned it and all one must do to have it is pick it up. In spiritual terms, picking it up is believing and receiving. Simply believe that God has provided it for you and that you are made worthy to receive it by the blood of the New Covenant and you can then take all that you need.

Just as manna was new every day, the blessings of God in Jesus Christ are fresh and new everyday as well. The prophet Jeremiah wrote, “It is of the LORD’s mercies that we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not. They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness” (Lamentations 3:22, 23). Israel was forbidden from taking extra manna to last into the next day, with the eve of the Sabbath being an obvious exception. God did this so that they were never eating yesterday’s blessing. Jesus wishes for His church to feed on Him and His goodness on a daily basis; not surviving on last Sunday morning’s blessing.

Jesus said that as the manna fell in the wilderness, feeding the children of Israel, so He is the bread of life sent to feed the church. “I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world” (John 6:51). Our spiritual bread is the broken body of Jesus Christ, which we partake of every time that we realize what Calvary accomplished for us. We now feed on His finished work on the cross, with all of our sins having been punished in His body, and all of our sickness having been paid for in Him. This is glorious food for the believer, for it takes all that is wrong with us and puts it in Jesus, so that we can be truly free.

God told Moses to fill an omer of manna to be placed into the Ark of the Covenant. An omer was the tenth part of an ephah (Exodus 16:36), and an ephah was a day’s worth of manna. In other words, God instructed Moses to put 1/10 of a day’s worth of manna into the Ark. This 1/10 is also called the tithe, denoting that God put the tithe into the Ark in the form of manna. Everything inside of the Ark was covered over by the mercy seat which was covered in blood. The blood sealed everything inside, freeing man from whatever its contents held over him. Israel placed the tithe of manna, Aaron’s rod that budded and the 10 Commandments into the Ark. Since these items are inside the Ark, they cannot be held against us again.

This means that we are free from the tithe, the 10 Commandments and the authority of man. Though free from every one of these, we still live them out through our righteousness: tithing by revelation of how good our God is; living the moral code of God through the finished work of Christ; and submitting ourselves to the authorities of the world and the church. All bondage to works has been placed beneath the blood and now we feed on the heavenly bread, Jesus Christ.