If an Israelite neglected to gather, in the freshness of the morning hour, his daily portion of the divinely appointed food, he would speedily have become lacking in strength for his journey. Thus is it with us. We must make Christ the paramount object of our soul's pursuit, else our spiritual life will inevitably decline. We cannot even feed upon feelings and experiences connected with Christ, for they, inasmuch as they are fluctuating, cannot form our spiritual nourishment. It was Christ yesterday, and it must be Christ to-day, and Christ forever. Moreover, it will not do to feed partly on Christ and partly on other things. As in the matter of _life_ it is Christ _alone_, so in the matter of _living_ it must be Christ _alone_. As we cannot mingle any thing with that which _imparts_ life, so neither can we mingle any thing with that which _sustains_ it.
It is quite true that, in spirit, and by faith, we can even now feed upon a risen and glorified Christ, ascended up to heaven in virtue of accomplished redemption, as prefigured by "the old corn of the land." (See Joshua v.) And not only so, but we know that when God's redeemed shall have entered upon those fields of glory, rest, and immortality which lie beyond the Jordan, they shall, in actual fact, be done with wilderness food; but they will not be done with Christ, nor with the remembrance of that which constitutes the specific nourishment of their desert life.
Israel were never to forget, amid the milk and honey of the land of Canaan, that which had sustained them during their forty years' sojourn in the wilderness. "This is the thing which the Lord commandeth: 'Fill an omer of it to be kept for your generations; that they may see the bread wherewith I have fed you in the wilderness, when I brought you forth from the land of Egypt.'... As the Lord commanded Moses, so Aaron laid it up before the testimony, to be kept." (Ver. 32-34.) Most precious memorial of the faithfulness of God! He did not suffer them to die of hunger, as their foolish hearts had unbelievingly anticipated. He rained bread from heaven for them, fed them with angels' food, watched over them with all the tenderness of a nurse, bore with them, carried them on eagles' wings, and, had they only continued on the proper ground of grace, He would have put them in eternal possession of all the promises made to their fathers. The pot of manna, therefore, containing, as it did, a man's daily portion, and laid up before the Lord, furnishes a volume of truth. There was no worm therein, nor aught of taint. It was the record of Jehovah's faithfulness in providing for those whom He had redeemed out of the hand of the enemy.