PAST MIRACLES—PRESENT LESSONS.
By Uriah Smith
The great issue before the present generation is the Sabbath question. This is so, because on this question the long controversy between truth and error, righteousness and rebellion, a controversy which spans the closing six thousand years of human probation, comes to its climax and conclusion. Therefore everything tending to throw light on the principles involved in this controversy, and show the right way, is of interest,—is “present truth.” Especially do those incidents connected with the Sabbath institution, which men make use of to try to invalidate its claims, become important themes of study, that their true significance may be clearly understood. One such incident is the giving of the manna to the Israelites after their deliverance from Egypt. From the statements of this case it is strenuously urged that the Sabbath was only a Jewish institution, given to that people alone, therefore not to be kept or taught by the people of to-day. Matt. 5: 19. Let us therefore consider the occurrence, and notice the lessons that are to be drawn therefrom. The greatest of all miracles recorded, excepting, of course, the creation, the flood, and the incarnation of our Lord, is, perhaps, this very occurrence of the giving of the manna to Israel. Indeed, it was not merely one miracle, but a wonderful combination of many miracles, covering a period of forty years. In it was involved a manifestation of at least eleven distinct features of miraculous power. It was miraculous in the following particulars:— 1. In that the manna was a new production. The other kinds of food which that people had had to use, had been seen and known before. This never was seen till that time. 2. In the source whence it came. All other kinds of food come up from below. This came down from heaven.250 3. In the place in which it fell. It was confined to the camp of Israel. It did not fall on other nations, and in other countries, but fell only in that one camp, and moved when that moved, and rested when that rested. 4. In the quantity that was provided; enough falling each night to fill many hundred thousand mouths for an entire day. It was not the so-called “honeydew,” which oozes from certain plants in some portions of Arabia, by which the skeptical sometimes try to discount the whole miracle, accounting for the manna on natural grounds; for the supply of the honeydew, so far as has ever been known, falling throughout an entire season, would not furnish a thousandth part of enough substance to meet the wants of that Israelitish host for a single day. The limited supply of the honeydew makes the suggestion to account for the miracle of the manna on that ground, utterly preposterous. 5. In its composition: round like coriander seed, transparent like dew, sweet like honey cakes; a combination of features unknown in any substance of nature. 6. In its quality, as shown in the way it was affected by surrounding conditions. Heat of one kind, like that of the sun, would melt it; while another kind, the artificial heat used in cooking, would harden it. 7. In the uniform variation of the amount falling at stated intervals; the quantity falling on the sixth day of every week being just twice as much as fell on each of the five preceding days. 8. In the regular times in which it ceased to fall entirely; for while a certain quantity fell on the first five days of each week, and a double quantity on the sixth day of every week, not a particle fell on the seventh day of each week. In this most marked and specific manner was the Sabbath singled out and set apart from all other days. 9. In the manner of its preservation or corruption. God rebuked the natural tendency of the human heart to accumulate and store up the good things of life for selfish purposes, by commanding that no manna should be kept over from day to day but that it should all be used on the day on which it fell. And if anyone through fear that none would fall the next day, or from a desire to have a little more than others around him, did attempt to keep it over, it immediately bred worms, and utterly spoiled. 10. There was a miracle in that it kept sweet and pure, when kept over the Sabbath, a length of time when, on any other day, it would become putrid. 11. In the fact that the manna ceased to fall just as soon as the people reached the promised land, where they could by their own efforts supply their daily food. This was as much as to say that there is no further need of a miracle when we have means that we can use to our own support. But the same God who is the God of the miracle, is the God of the means also. The circumstances of the falling of the manna were calculated to promote in the people the constant exercise of faith. That mighty host all lay down to sleep every night with absolutely no provision on hand to meet their necessities on the morrow. They had to trust continually the providence of God to bring their necessary food for the coming day. We learn from the manna how necessary it is for man to co-operate with God, in order that he may receive the good that God has intended for him. God provided the manna, and let it fall into their camp; but the people had to go out and gather it, and prepare it in suitable ways to be used as food, and then partake of it, by their own exertions. They could not produce the manna, and God would not gather and prepare it for them. The first was God’s work; the second was theirs. Thus man must be a co-worker with God. Though God provided the manna ever so freely and bountifully, it would have done them no good if they had not performed their part,—gathered it and prepared it for use. No manna fell on the Sabbath. What did this proclaim for that time, and for all time?—It proclaimed that the Sabbath is a divine institution, and a pre-existing institution. The first mention of the Sabbath in the chapter before us (Exodus 16) is in verse 23; and then it is said, not, “To-morrow shall be the Sabbath, or, Every seventh day hereafter is to be the Sabbath; but, ‘To-morrow is the rest of the Sabbath.’” This shows that the Sabbath was previously instituted, and was so understood. “This,” as J. Stacy, D. D., well remarks, in his “Day of Rest,” “is the language of the historian, not the legislator; it is the familiar method of speaking of something already in existence.” Moreover the statement is not that they should cease from all their work every seventh day, but only from the gathering of the manna; which shows again that the institution was already in existence, but was here made especially applicable to the gathering of the manna. And this is still further confirmed by the declaration of verse 29: “See, for that the Lord,”—now “gives you a Sabbath”?—No, but—“hath given you the Sabbath;” and the manna is not to interfere with that arrangement. By no possible legerdemain can the record be so manipulated as to favor the idea that the Sabbath was here instituted. That the Sabbath was not instituted at the giving of the manna, is further shown by the statement, in verse 4, of the object of the giving of the manna. It is not, I will rain bread from heaven for you, and the people shall go out and gather a certain rate every day, that I may establish a Sabbath for the people, but, “They shall go out and gather a certain rate every day, that I may prove them, whether they will walk in my law or no.” This was the object of the manna. It was not to establish a Sabbath, but to prove the people whether they would walk in God’s law or not. What law? and how would this prove them?—Clearly the law of the Sabbath, which was already in existence, and which if they would keep, they would, for the same reason, show their loyalty to all the other precepts of the law also. In the giving of the manna we have also a wonderful exhibition of the keeping of the Sabbath by the Lord himself, as our example. It is not so much the resting of the people that impresses one as it is the cessation of the divine power every seventh day, by which the manna was produced on the other days. The manna was the direct production of God’s power, furnished for them each day. But every seventh day that power ceased to work in this manner; and there were over two thousand Sabbaths that were thus spent before they reached Canaan, with this wonderful manifestation before them every week. Thus for over two thousand Sabbaths God rested from producing the manna for them, thus giving them a divine example for rest on that day: and the people of course rested from gathering it. Weston says, “Time and the world may be searched in vain for another series of events by which it would be possible to impress the idea of a Sabbath upon the minds of the people as effectually as by this.” If it could be found where any divine being had rested on over two thousand Sundays, what a long-felt want it would supply to that embarrassed institution! We have, also, in this history of the giving of the manna, a striking illustration of how men, long committed to error, will misconstrue facts, pervert reason, and juggle with the Scripture record itself, to bolster up a tottering institution. Some who, in opposition to the Sabbath, seek to prove that it originated in the wilderness, at the giving of the manna, claim, first, that the manna began to fall on the day when Israel came into the wilderness of Sin, the fifteenth day of the second month. Then they endeavor to figure the record so as to show that on the Sabbath before, the Israelitish hosts were on their journey, and not keeping the day at all. But this is all assumption; for we do not know, and there is no record to show, how long it was after they came to the wilderness of Sin before the manna began to fall. The necessary conclusion is that it must have been several days; for the whole congregation fell to murmuring, and had to be reproved therefor (Ex. 16: 2, 3), which would not have taken place until they had been there long enough to begin to feel the pangs of hunger. Secondly, and stranger than all, they claim that the sixth and seventh days there mentioned, are to be reckoned, respectively, from the falling of the manna; and that the seventh day means every seventh day from that time, without reference to any weekly cycle from creation, and that was to be their Sabbath. If this be true, then the sixth day would mean every successive sixth day from the same point of time; and then there was to be a double portion of manna given by the divine power. Let us see how this would work even in a very short space of time. The second sixth day from the beginning would be the twelfth day, and the second seventh day would be the fourteenth; the third sixth day would be the eighteenth, and the third seventh day the twenty-first; the fourth sixth day would be the twenty-fourth, and the fourth seventh day the twenty-eighth, and so on. Thus the day on which a double portion was to be given, and the day on which there would be none, would be further and further apart, each week, for six weeks. But this would ruin the whole scheme; for the manna would not keep from one week day to another, but only from the last day of the week, over the Sabbath; and at the end of the seventh week the days would come together—one on which there should be no manna, and the other on which there should be a double portion; and then what condition would that arrangement be in? Why will men stultify their logic in preference to reforming their religious life? The manna ceased just as soon as Israel reached the land where they had the facilities for providing themselves with food. This shows us that we are to avail ourselves of all the means within our reach to help ourselves; and when these fail us, God stands by with his miraculous power to help us, according to the well-known adage, that “man’s necessity is God’s opportunity.” Another point of constant application is this: The manna had to be gathered fresh every morning. Christ says that he is the true Manna, the Bread which came down from heaven. And so we are to seek and receive from him fresh supplies of his grace each day. We can not live upon an old experience. We can accumulate no extra amount of spiritual supplies to be laid away for future use. Like the manna, it must be gathered fresh every morning. When we experience a time of special blessing, let us guard against the mistake of resting down upon our oars awhile, depending upon what we have already received. The supply is not exhausted. God will furnish fresh supplies to all who will receive it and appropriate it. Thus we may go on from strength to strength; and the Sabbath will be a delight. U. S.