(The God Who Feeds His People)
(Nehemiah 9:15)
Text:
9:15 And gavest them bread from heaven for their hunger, and broughtest forth water for them out of the rock for their thirst, and promisedst them that they should go in to possess the land which thou hadst sworn to give them.
Some Initial Remarks
2) In week #2 we saw that Jehovah is a God Who Chooses His people.
3) In week #3 we saw that Jehovah is a God Who Sees and Hears His People.
4) In week #4 we saw that Jehovah is the God Who Leads His people.
5) Last week we saw that Jehovah is the God who teaches His people.
This week we come again to that fantastic Levitical prayer found in chapter 9, our thought for today, Jehovah "The God Who Feeds His People".
The Names of our Great God:
The God Who Feeds His People
"And gavest them bread from
heaven for their hunger, and broughtest forth water for them out of the
rock for their thirst,..."
Here we find the physical provisions of our Great God, to His people Israel. How awesome it must have been to wake up each morning and find manna, God's provision graciously provided, or what about when Moses smote the rock in Horeb and God provided water for over a million people and their livestock. It surely would have been an awesome sight, can you imagine the water that God provided. I think we don't realize just how amazing of a sight this would have been.
1) The first of God's gracious provision mentioned is that God "gave them bread from heaven for their hunger". A nation of over a million people, can you imagine the food it would take to supply their needs, and the needs of their livestock. God graciously provides food each day, and enough on Friday so that they would not need to collect on Saturday. First by way of application I would say just as God provided for the needs of Israel, He today provides for the needs of His people. But even more importantly that manna was a picture of Jesus Himself. It was a picture of the real food from heaven, the only food that can truly nourish a starving soul. John 6:31 "Our fathers did eat manna in the desert; as it is written, He gave them bread from heaven to eat. Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Moses gave you not that bread from heaven; but my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is he which cometh down from heaven, and giveth life unto the world. Then said they unto him, Lord, evermore give us this bread. And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst." The grand and glorious news of the gospel is that God offers that bread to all men. Are you hungry, come unto the one who can nourish a starving soul.
2) The second provision we find from our Great God to the nation
of Israel is God "broughtest forth water for them
out of the rock for their thirst". God
in His manifold mercy on two occasions provided water for His thirsty people.
Again I would say first that God supplies the physical needs of His people
just as He did the nation of Israel. But again, even more importantly
God provides Christ the water of life, this water in the Old Testament
was only a picture of the real water, our Lord Jesus Christ, given to His
people in the person of the Holy Spirit (John 7:36-37). In
fact that rock that Moses smote is equally a picture of our blessed Savior.
ICor 10:1-4 "Moreover, brethren, I would not that ye should be ignorant,
how that all our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the
sea; 2 And were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea; 3
And did all eat the same spiritual meat; 4 And did all drink the same spiritual
drink: for they drank of that spiritual Rock that followed them: and that
Rock was Christ." Isn't it wonderful that if you are saved today you
can declare that you have been fed with the real bread from heaven, and
you have drank of the living water and you will never thirst again.
Application
