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The wilderness experience of `bread from heaven' threw light upon the meaning of the
epiousion bread of the Lord's Prayer. The provision of manna (Exod. 16:) closely
followed by a need for water:
"And there was no water for the people to drink. Wherefore the people did chide with
Moses, and said, Give us water that we may drink. And Moses said unto them. Why
chide ye with me? wherefore do ye tempt the Lord?" (Exod. 17: 1, 2).
It was not unreasonable in the circumstances to ask for water; what was wrong
however was the attitude of the people. They quarreled with Moses and murmured
against him. The word `murmur' (loon) has about it the basic idea of abide or dwell. The
people's error lay in dwelling on the subject of their need with discontent and
grumblings, and so they tried the Lord. This attitude, which was characteristic of the
whole period of their wandering, is further explained in Heb. 3: 8 as being
`provocative', characteristic of `hardness of heart'. The experiences through which they
passed were intended to humble and prove (nasah) them (Deut. 8: 2), but alas it turned
out that they tried (nasah) Him. The period of this failure became proverbial; it was "the
day of temptation in the wilderness" (Psa. 95: 8; Heb. 3: 8).
The attitude, and consequences of that attitude, of the Moses' generation are quoted by
the writer of Hebrews as a warning to the then present generation, "lest any of you be
hardened through the deceitfulness of sin" (3: 13). Their experience was very much a
wilderness experience, and they could fall to the same temptation. If that dispensation
had continued unbroken it would have run on into the Great Tribulation and the
experiences recorded in the Revelation, a time of need even greater than that of Moses'
generation. In the light of all this, a promise given to those that endure during this yet
future period is very significant:
"Because thou hast kept the word of My patience (endurance), I also will keep thee
from the hour of temptation (peirasmos), which shall come upon all the world, to try
(peirazo) them that dwell upon the earth" (Rev. 3: 10).
What this may imply can be felt from II Pet. 2: 6-9:
"Turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrha into ashes . . . . . and delivered (roumai
the word used in the Lord's Prayer--`deliver us from evil') just Lot . . . . . the Lord
knoweth how to deliver (roumai) the godly out of temptation."
The warning given to Lot, which saved him from being consumed in the destruction of
Sodom, is paralleled in Matt. 24: 15-22, where the setting up of the abomination of
desolation in the holy place is a warning signal to `flee into the mountains', for then shall
be `great tribulation'. Under such conditions as will prevail during this period, there will
be great tendency to react like a previous generation of Israel, who tempted the Lord with
their murmurings. The Acts period was not the Great Tribulation, but it was preparatory
to it in some senses. An early epistle written during this period was that of James and
parts of it are very significant to this subject: