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Israel’s Journeyings
101
Many have their present wants supplied; yet they will not trust
the Lord for the future. They manifest unbelief and sink into de-
spondency and gloom at anticipated want. Some are in continual
trouble lest they shall come to want and their children suffer. When
difficulties arise or when they are brought into strait places—when
their faith and their love to God are tested—they shrink from the
trial and murmur at the process by which God has chosen to purify
them. Their love does not prove pure and perfect, to bear all things.
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The faith of the people of the God of heaven should be strong,
active, and enduring—the substance of things hoped for. Then the
language of such will be, “Bless the Lord, O my soul: and all that is
within me, bless His holy name,” for He hath dealt bountifully with
me.
Self-denial is considered by some to be real suffering. Depraved
appetites are indulged. And a restraint upon the unhealthy appetites
would lead even many professed Christians to now start back, as
though actual starvation would be the consequence of a plain diet.
And, like the children of Israel, they would prefer slavery, diseased
bodies, and even death, rather than to be deprived of the flesh pots.
Bread and water is all that is promised to the remnant in the time of
trouble.
The Manna
“And when the dew that lay was gone up, behold, upon the face
of the wilderness there lay a small round thing, as small as the hoar
frost on the ground. And when the children of Israel saw it, they said
one to another, It is manna: for they wist not what it was. And Moses
said unto them, This is the bread which the Lord hath given you
to eat. This is the thing which the Lord hath commanded, Gather
of it every man, according to his eating, an omer for every man,
according to the number of your persons; take ye every man for
them which are in his tents.
“And the children of Israel did so, and gathered, some more,
some less. And when they did mete it with an omer, he that gathered
much had nothing over, and he that gathered little had no lack; they
gathered every man according to his eating. And Moses said, Let
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no man leave of it till the morning. Notwithstanding they hearkened