In this sermon, Pastor Chuck Smith discusses the response of God to the grumblings of the children of Israel after their deliverance from Egypt. He emphasizes the importance of having a close relationship with God and experiencing His presence and power in our lives. Pastor Chuck also highlights the need for faithful warnings and declarations of God's truth, particularly in relation to prophecy. He uses the analogy of a potter shaping clay on a wheel to illustrate how God molds and shapes us through the circumstances of our lives.

Oh, let the Son of God enfold you With His Spirit and His love Let Him fill your heart and satisfy your soul Oh, let Him have the things that hold you And His Spirit like a dove Will descend upon your life And make you whole Welcome to The Word for Today Featuring the Bible teaching of Pastor Chuck Smith Of Calvary Chapel, Costa Mesa, California Pastor Chuck is currently leading us on a verse-by-verse study Through the entire Bible And on today's edition of The Word for Today We'll be looking at the response of God To the grumblings of the children of Israel As Pastor Chuck Smith picks up today's lesson in Exodus Chapter 16, verse 1 God has delivered the children of Israel From their bondage in Egypt Having watched the Pharaoh and his armies drown in the Red Sea Chapter 15, they sing the glorious song of God's deliverance God's power, God's destruction of their enemies But how quickly we forget the work and the hand of God They come to the water at Marah They find it bitter, they complain against Moses And the Lord shows Moses a bush that he throws into the water It becomes sweet They journey from Marah to Elam, an oasis Where there are 12 wells of water and several palm trees And in chapter 16 now, they move on from Elam And all the congregation of the children of Israel Came to the wilderness of Sin Which is between Elam and the Sinai And on the 15th day of the second month After they departed from the land of Egypt The whole congregation of the children of Israel Murmured against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness So they've been one month now Out of Egypt And listen to them As they said to Moses and Aaron Oh that we had died by the hand of the Lord 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 the whole assembly with starvation Now, they begin to complain to Moses and Aaron Saying it would have been better off had we died When God killed the firstborn in Egypt At least theirs was a sudden death The stroke of God, in one night they were gone But instead you've brought us out here to starve us to death The slow painful death by starvation Now it was not possible that they were starving yet But they had now begun to experience a little bit of The barrenness of the desert They could probably foresee that there wasn't enough grazing For the cattle And they could foresee that It could get pretty tough living out here It would have been better to have died suddenly in Egypt Rather than to die by starvation here in the wilderness And the Lord said to Moses Behold I will reign 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 Now it is interesting to me that God does not Indicate at all any anger or even being upset with the people murmuring The Bible tells us concerning the people at this point That God knew their frame that they were but dust And so God tolerated a lot Knowing that they were just weak And God promises that he is going to provide for them bread from heaven However in so doing He was going to test them to see if they would walk in his law or not And so with this bread from heaven The manna that was to come There were two laws involved The first is that they were not to try to store any overnight Only take what you can eat But don't try to store it overnight The second was Don't expect to find any on the seventh day On the sixth day You will gather enough For the sixth and the seventh day And there won't be any of this Manna on the ground on the seventh day So don't go out to find it on the seventh day So two laws God's going to test them Will they keep my law or not 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 the Lord has brought you out of the land of Egypt And in the morning you shall see the glory of the Lord For he hears your murmurings against the Lord But what are we that you should murmur against us So they Let the people know that your murmuring really isn't against us as your leaders Your murmuring is against God Whose direction we are following Now in time Their murmuring got them into trouble In the beginning God tolerated the murmuring But in time it really became a Issue for which they were punished by God Interesting to note that the murmuring Was recognized to be against God And any time we murmur Concerning our lot in life We are in essence murmuring against God Because we have committed our lives to God And he is in control of those circumstances of our lives And so for me to murmur against my circumstances Is to murmur against God He's the one who has created the circumstances He is the one who has brought me to this place He is the one who has brought me into this trial perhaps Though I may direct my murmuring at an individual In reality it is God who is in control The Lord one day said to Jeremiah the prophet I want you to go down to the potter's house And watch him as he works a work on his wheel So Jeremiah said I went down to the potter's house And I watched him as he was working with his wheel And he took this bit of clay and he began to shape the clay And then he wasn't satisfied with the way it was coming out And he took it and he just destroyed the shape Took it back in just a lump of clay again And he started all over and he formed a second vessel And the Lord spoke to Jeremiah From this figure of the potter And God declared that in this case the nation of Israel Was like the clay and God was the potter And God was able to shape it as he desired And even though they didn't fit his first intention He's able to remake them He's able to make of them a vessel that would please him Isaiah the prophet also saw the figure of God as the potter And man as the clay and who are you old man to respond to God Asking him why God did you allow this to happen Why God did you make me thus Recognizing that the potter has absolute power over the clay To do with it whatever he wishes But as Jeremiah was in the potter's house We see there are three aspects to it There is the clay There is the wheel upon which the potter works And then there is the potter himself Man is the clay God is the potter The wheel are the circumstances of our lives That God uses to shape us and to mold us Our characters are being shaped by God, molded by God Through the circumstances of our lives God allows trials, God allows testings, God allows painful experiences That through these he might develop character Trust And so my life is being developed by the circumstances in which I find myself And unfortunately Many times I resist The circumstances, I don't like it, I stiffen up And the moment I stiffen up as with Jeremiah The vessel becomes marred in the hands of the potter God wasn't able to shape me as he desired I stiffened against the work of God Hardened myself to the work of God So God has to start over I wonder how many times he's had to start over with me Back to zero Back to the blob Here I start all over again The wheel starts turning, the circumstances start coming And God begins now to mold and shape again But the wheel is the instrument through which the potter does his work Shapes and molds the clay And so the circumstances of our lives by which we are shaped and molded Now I notice that the wheel is under the continual control of the potter He is able to speed it up, he's able to slow it down, he's able to stop it The wheel is under his control So that God is in control of the circumstances of my life God is the one who has allowed these things to happen to me Now according to the scripture as I understand it God has allowed them to happen for my good God is only interested in my best welfare Thus for me to complain of the circumstances of my life Or to murmur about the things that are happening to me Is in reality to murmur against God They came to Moses and Aaron murmuring about Being led out here in the wilderness to die of starvation We've been better off to die in Egypt And God comes back and says they're going to see my glory I'm going to test them to see if they'll obey my law or not And he says tomorrow morning you'll see the power of God The glory of God But you've murmured not really against us You've murmured against the Lord And Moses said verse 8 This shall be seen when the Lord gives you meat to eat in the evening And in the morning bread till you're full For the Lord hears your murmurings which you make against Him That's sort of heavy that God actually hears every time you murmur against Him And again who are we? Why are you murmuring against us? We're only the instruments of God We're only God's appointed leaders You're really murmuring against Him Not against us Then Moses spoke to Aaron and he said Say to the congregation of the children of Israel Come near before the Lord for He has heard your murmurings And now it came to pass as Aaron spoke to the whole congregation The children of Israel They looked toward the wilderness and behold the glory of the Lord appeared in the cloud And the Lord spoke to Moses saying I have heard the murmurings of the children of Israel Speak to them saying at twilight you shall eat meat And in the morning you shall be filled with bread And you shall know that I am the Lord your God So it was that quails came up at evening and covered the camp And in the morning the dew lay all around the camp And when the layer of dew lifted there was on the surface of the wilderness A small round substance as fine as frost on the ground So when the children of Israel saw it they said one to another What is it? For they did not know what it was And Moses said to them this is the bread Which the Lord has given you to eat So they complained they said oh we were only backed by the flesh pots in Egypt There we had all the bread we could eat You know you brought us out here to starve us to death So the Lord said I'll show you that I can feed you in the wilderness And in the evening he brought quail into the camp Now this is a phenomenon that often takes place in the springtime As the quail are migrating northward from Africa As they fly across the Red Sea after flying that distance nonstop Often as they get to the northern side They fall by exhaustion on the ground And so it was that the quail fell in the camp of the Israelites Just the ground was covered with these quail As they migrated northward that happens even to the present day Doesn't take away from the miraculous aspect God told Moses he's going to do it this evening Then the next day on the ground Sort of like coriander seed When the dew lifted there was this little round seed-like That they gathered Now there was an interesting thing They were to gather each of them an omer per person And there is a divergence of opinion of what constitutes an omer Or how much an omer is And the estimates of an omer by the scholars Is anything from a pint and a half to seven pints Now it would appear from the text in the Hebrew And this is the interesting thing That when they gathered it and brought it into the tent to measure it If they gathered more than an omer All they could measure out was just an omer And if they gathered less They poured it in to measure it and it turned out to be an omer So if they would lack it was made up And if they would gather more it was taken away So that when they measured it It would always measure out to be an omer And then on the sixth day when they would measure it No matter what they gathered it measured two omers Gathered the same amount but you go to measure it and you've got twice So it would seem that there was a miracle involved Even in the amount gathered that it was something that God was creating for them Now when they saw it they didn't know what it was They said what is this And Moses said to them this is the bread Which the Lord has given you to eat This is the thing which the Lord has commanded That every man gather according to each one's need One omer per each person According to the number of persons in your family That every man take for those who are in his tent And the children of Israel did so and gathered some more and some less Some gathered more than others some less than others But when they measured it by omers He who gathered much had nothing over He who gathered little had no lack It was God leveled it off Every man had gathered according to each one's need And Moses said let no one leave any of it until the morning Now this was one of the commands See if they follow it or not Don't leave any of it over till tomorrow Don't try and save it until tomorrow Notwithstanding they did not heed Moses But some of them left part of it until the morning And it bred worms and stank And Moses was angry with them The interesting thing Is that on the sixth day They could keep it overnight and it kept God's provision Why would God make it so That they would have to gather every day Because God wanted to teach them To live by faith in him Day by day And faith is a daily lesson Even as Jesus in the prayer said Give us this day Our daily bread So they gathered for each day And tomorrow we're going to have to trust God to put it on the ground For our needs tomorrow That God takes care of us day by day Now this is the way God wants us really to live Day by day trusting in him to take care of us We don't like to live that way do we We like to have a little security here We don't like living daily by faith It's something that we find objectionable As I have often said the life of faith is something we really don't care for It's so much better when I finally understand When I finally see what God was doing Then I say oh isn't that wonderful I see now what God was doing Oh right that's great But when I can't see what God is doing When I don't understand what's going on I don't like that I don't like to be in that position where you just have to wait on God Day by day but that's exactly what God wants And so not going to let it stay overnight But they failed some of them failed in the first Did God say I'm going to test you See if you're going to keep my law or not Some of them failed We'll return with more of our fascinating study of Exodus In our next lesson As Pastor Chuck Smith continues to lead us verse by verse Through the entire Bible And we do hope you'll make plans to join us But right now I'd like to remind you That if you missed any part of today's message Or perhaps you'd like to order a copy For that special friend or loved one You can do so by simply contacting One of our customer service representatives And they'd be 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Box 8000 Costa Mesa, California 92628 And be sure to include the call letters Of this station with your correspondence And now on behalf of The Word for Today We'd like to thank all of you Who share in supporting this ministry With your prayers and financial support And be sure to join us again next time As Pastor Chuck Smith continues His verse by verse study Through the book of Exodus That's right here On the next edition of The Word for Today Now once again Here's Pastor Chuck Smith May God now take the word And hide it in our hearts And may it come back In our time of need To guide and to direct us In our walk And in our relationship with God That place of first love The first bloom of love In that relationship with God And may you experience again The presence and the power of God Working in your life In Jesus' name As your pastor It's my responsibility to witness The truth of Jesus Christ to you So as we're about to talk about This year's Prophecy Update It's necessary to be faithful In giving these warnings To declare what God has said So that you may be alert to the things That are about to happen Listen and watch Pastor Chuck's Prophecy Alert for 2012 With special guest Pastor Steve Appel of Calvary Chapel, Tel Aviv And Arieh Eldad from the Israeli Defense Force You know, we've been saying Last times, last days for a long time Obviously, but that event in 1948 Changed everything To order Prophecy Alert 2012 Please contact The Word for Today At 1-800-272-WORD Or visit us online at TheWordForToday.org Be alert We are in a constant battle Facing an enemy Live in that sense of urgency For these are desperate days This program has been sponsored by The Word for Today In Costa Mesa, California