Pastor's Pen 7-20-08

FEEDING THE MULTITUDES IN THE WILDERNESS
We’ve all read about how God provided for the Israelites in the wilderness. The problem is that the narrative in the Bible just doesn’t bring it down to where we can get the picture of the scope of the miracle of feeding 3,000,000 people every day. What do we know about manna?
Instead of manna, suppose it was three million cheeseburgers with fries and a drink? Consider the logistics for three million meals every day:
¼ lb. of meat for each: Total 750,000 lbs. (It would take 200 railroad cars to haul the meat and would require 10 locomotives to pull it).
Buns: 250,000 Dozen
Mustard: 11,000 Gallons
Dill Pickles: 12,000 Gallons
Tomatoes: 50,000 Gallons
Cheese: 200,000 Lbs
Onions: 175,000 Lbs
Lettuce: 150,000 Head

Potatoes for French fries: 750,000 lbs (7 = freight cars)
Cokes: 750,000 Gallons (75 freight cars)
Ice: 375,000 lbs (4 freight cars)
Did I mention that a freight train of 100 cars would be about a mile long?
If it took ten minutes to cook a batch of 10,000 quarter pound patties, that would produce 60,000 cooked patties per hour. 3,000,000 cooked patties would require more than two days and nights of preparation - not to mention peeling and cooking the French fries, slice the onions, slice the tomatoes, chop the ice and pour the cokes.
That’s what we would expect today if we found ourselves in the wilderness. We need to get a grip on the size of this miracle and it occurred every day for forty years!

God gave them manna to eat every day for 40 years. The word manna means "What is it." The people looked at this stuff that fell from heaven and said "What is it?" I think hat it must have been a bread type food that gave them all of the vitamins and nutrients that they needed to stay in good health. God took care of every need that they had, everyday. f they tried to take enough for the next day it would mold and worms would crawl out of it. God wanted them to have faith in Him everyday. By gathering enough for today and tomorrow they were telling God that they did not trust Him for tomorrow.
I wonder what we tell God by the way we act and live, do we trust Him for today and tomorrow?
Food for thought!!!
In HIS Service,
Bro. Randy