“And the children of Israel did eat manna forty years...until they came unto the borders of the land of Canaan...And the manna ceased on the morrow after they had eaten of the old... neither had the children of Israel manna any more; but they did eat of the fruit of the land of Canaan that year.”
Manna, whatever else it may represent, is associated with wilderness saints: faithless, fruitless, and faltering, going in circles, never getting any place. We wonder sometimes why we have not advanced in our Christian life, why we have not grown more. To a great extent, it is because we live upon the “old manna.” We're too easily satisfied with the old manna, rather than the fresh grapes of Eshcol .
The history of Israel was, each time the way got rough, “Let us return into Egypt.” They longed for the way it was, not the way it could be. The former takes faith! To experience the new, many times we must leave much of the old behind. This was the problem with the early Jewish Christians. They held to their religious past. The writer of Hebrews exhorts them, “Leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto perfection.”
The old in our lives has served its purpose, but to return to it is only to find it breeding worms. The rich, adult cuisine of Canaan cannot be compared to the infant pablum of the wilderness. We have a choice how we will live our lives. Either in poverty, wandering in the wilderness of this world, our fleshly appetites never satisfied, or feasting on the spiritual riches of Canaan.
I guarantee, no true Christian when entering the New Heaven, will desire the old earth!
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