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“Tomorrow is the rest of the holy sabbath unto the Lord…that which remaineth over lay up for you to be kept until the morning … . and it did not stink, neither was there any worm therein … . Six days ye shall gather it; but on the seventh day, which is the sabbath, in it there shall be none” (Exodus 16:23-24,26).
The sabbath was the day of rest for Israel, and it is a picture of God’s eternal rest for us, with Him in heaven. During all eternity we will surely learn more of Christ, but there are some things about Him we cannot learn up there. We cannot learn Him as the One who can comfort us in every problem, for there will be no problems up there. We cannot learn Him as the One who can guide us in difficulties, or the One who provides for all our needs, for we will not have any difficulties or needs up there. We can learn those things only down here. But the memory of them will be with us for all eternity.
In the wilderness, the children of Israel learned more about the Lord in times of trouble than when everything went smoothly. When they got into the land of Canaan, they could remember all the way the Lord led them. It will be like that with us. We learn Christ down here through the problems along the way, and we will have those memories for all eternity. It makes it all worthwhile to go through trouble, when we learn more of Him! In that sense we are “gathering manna” that will never go bad.
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