Deuteronomy 8 1Be careful to follow every command I am giving you today, so that you may live and increase and may enter and possess the land the Lord promised on oath to your ancestors. 2 Remember how the Lord your God led you all the way in the wilderness these forty years, to humble and test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands. 3 He humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna, which neither you nor your ancestors had known, to teach you that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.
God caused the Israelites to hunger. That doesn’t seem very nice, does it? I don’t like being hungry. I like the feeling of being full. I’m probably actually not hungry very often because I find a way to eat, to snack, before I reach true hunger. I suppose, if the truth were told, I stay relatively full to avoid the uncomfortable feeling of hunger. I doubt I have a very good understanding of what true hunger is like.
Here is what I know intellectually. Being hungry puts me in a state of longing. It makes me restless. It involves a feeling of emptiness. It creates and increases my desire for food. When I am in that state, I am in need. When I am empty and need to be filled, I am conscious of my emptiness and my need. When I am truly full, I am in a position where I lack desire or am not conscious of desire. When I am full, I am looking to be filled. I know that sounds elementary, but the spiritual principles here are stunning.
We read here in Deuteronomy 8 that while the Jews were wandering in the wilderness, on their way to the Promised Land, God caused them to hunger so that He could feed them with manna. He wanted to be the One to supply their need. He wanted them to look to Him as their Source. He wanted them to have a need that would require them to depend on Him to meet it.
God caused His people to hunger, and then He fed them with manna. Everything God does is intentional. There is always a spiritual component to the way He works with His people in the physical. Everything is a learning opportunity. Everything points to something greater.
When God fed the Jewish nation with manna, He was teaching them about how He would sustain them, not just physically, but He was pointing to Jesus, the “Bread of Life,” who would take care of every spiritual need they had. The manna was a bread-like substance. It literally came from Heaven and would appear on the ground. That happened day after day for 40 years. That consistent, always-available-bread, would create a predictability, and a dependance on God to supply.
The word, “manna,” means “What is it?” As the Israelites found this bread-like substance on the ground, they couldn’t figure out what it was. It had come from Heaven. It was unlike anything they had ever seen. They didn’t even have language to describe it. How did this Heavenly bread point to Jesus?
Just like the manna was God’s idea, sending Jesus, the Messiah, to be the sacrifice for the sins of the world, was God’s idea. God knew about our need for salvation before we were ever created and had purposed the exact time that Jesus would come into the world to be the Savior. Revelation 13.8 says, Jesus was the Lamb who was slain from the foundation of the world. Jesus wasn’t any man’s idea. Jesus was part of the plan from the beginning of time.
Manna was free for the Israelites to eat. They didn’t have to work for it. They didn’t have to ask permission to eat it. It was available, free for the taking. The same is true of the salvation Jesus offers. Salvation is free. God’s grace is free. His forgiveness is free. The new life He offers is free, not because it doesn’t cost anything, but because Jesus paid the price for us all. Romans 10:13 says, “Everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved.”
Jesus referred to the manna when He talked about Himself. Look at John 6:31-35: 31 Our ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written: ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’[c]”32 Jesus said to them, “Very truly I tell you, it is not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven, but it is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. 33 For the bread of God is the bread that comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” 34 “Sir,” they said, “always give us this bread.” 35 Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.
Whoever comes to Jesus will never be hungry or thirsty. There is a spiritual nourishment that we can count on when we follow Jesus. Jesus said, “Whoever!” Everyone is eligible to come to Jesus. Everyone can become a Child of God. Do you know that the manna that was on the menu in the wilderness, every day for 40 years, fed the young and it fed the old and everyone in between? From the youngest to the oldest, that bread had the nutrients each person needed. No one had to have a special diet. No one was manna-intolerant. Everyone was fed and sustained and nourished by what God offered. The same is true of the universal salvation found in Jesus. He is truly the Savior of the world.
Jesus went on to say in verses 47-51 47 Very truly I tell you, the one who believes has eternal life. 48 I am the bread of life. 49 Your ancestors ate the manna in the wilderness, yet they died. 50 But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which anyone may eat and not die. 51 I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world.”
Jesus is our mana, our daily bread, our spiritual sustenance. I’ll mention that the mana was small. Jesus made Himself nothing when He came in human flesh. He humbled Himself. He emptied Himself. Though He was God, He willingly entered the human experience, not as the Mighty God, but as a minute baby. God was wrapped in human flesh. Majesty and might were delivered in a very small container.
I’ll mention as well that the manna was round. Just as a circle doesn’t have a beginning or ending, Jesus is eternal. There has never been a time when Jesus was not. He had no beginning. He has no ending.
Third, I’ll tell you that the manna was white. Exodus 16:31says so. The whiteness of that bread points to the purity of Jesus. Jesus lived a pure and sinless life. I Peter 2:22 tells us Jesus committed no sin. I John 3:5 and Hebrews 7:26 report the same. That is what qualified Him to be the sacrifice for the sins of the world.
Fourth, the manna tasted good. It was sweet. It was satisfying. It met their need. Oh, “Taste and see that the Lord is good,” Psalm 34:8. Nothing satisfies the soul like Jesus. Jesus wants to be the One to satisfy us because it is easy for us to become self-sufficient, because it is easy for us to forget to look to God, because it is easy to become satisfied with some earthly experience and forget that there is a Promised Land place, an abundant life experience, that there is more, exceedingly abundantly more. Do you want the more that awaits? Sometimes, God allows us to hunger for a minute, just so that He can feed us and remind us that it’s about more than food or a physical existence. It is about a relationship with Jesus, a supernatural walk, a day-by-day dependence that produces abundant life.
