Manna is the spirit of God. Or rather, a physical symbol that represents the spirit of God.

Exodus 16:31 And the house of Israel called the name thereof manna: and it was like coriander seed, white; and the taste of it was like wafers made with honey.

So it tasted something like a cracker made with honey; sort of a heavenly Ritz cracker grain. It was definitely made from a grain, or at least some spiritual grain equivalent, for God calls it bread.

Psalms 78:24 And had rained down manna upon them to eat, and had given them of the corn of heaven.

John 6:31 Our fathers did eat manna in the desert; as it is written, He gave them bread from heaven to eat.

This manna was their primary source of nutrition while wandering in a barren wilderness for 40 years.

Psalms 104:15 And wine that maketh glad the heart of man, and oil to make his face to shine, and bread which strengtheneth man’s heart.

Bread is a nearly complete food. Grains have been the staple of man’s diet everywhere since man first farmed. You need virtually no other food source if you have good, well grown, healthy bread.

And, if you have access to plenty of God’s spirit you need nothing else. You crave nothing else. You are satisfied, as you are after a good meal.

But in man’s infinite pretense at wisdom, he improved wheat and made it “better.” He took wheat, and after grinding it, separated parts out he deemed less tasty – less important. By removing the wheat bran and the wheat germ, he removed virtually all of some minerals, and most of the others. This new flour became white flour, because it didn’t have the bran and germ which made flour brown. It was almost entirely carbohydrates and protein and nothing else.

This white flour kept remarkably better than the whole wheat flour. Not even bugs would eat it. This made it commercially much more viable. And it could be prepared with much less skill than whole wheat flour, and could produce a lighter, fluffier product with less fiber and less crunch, which in most pastries was desirable. And when it was bleached, it became a beautiful pure snowy white for better eye appeal.

It was available only to the rich for thousands of years, as it was a very labor intensive process to separate in the pre-industrial days, and it didn’t become available to middle class citizens on a wide scale until the late 1800s due to inventions in new machinery to separate the bran and germ from the rest of the kernel. Before then, the most wealthy prided themselves on their fine foods. And suffered more diseases than any of the poor as a result.

Proverbs 23:1-3 When thou sittest to eat with a ruler, consider diligently what is before thee: And put a knife to thy throat, if thou be a man given to appetite. Be not desirous of his dainties: for they are deceitful meat.

These dainties were made of such things as white flour, refined sugar, fine muscle meats and other deficient foods that only the rich could afford to eat. Solomon said not to eat them, nor to desire them. Rich men were known to get gout when poor men didn’t for a reason – they dug their graves with their teeth. The most commonly used instrument of suicide has always been the fork.

And so when the average citizen could afford to eat the deceitful dainties made possible by the rise in industrialization, he too fell prey to the rich man’s diseases. The rise of availability of white flour came hand in hand with an exponential and unprecedented rise in every form of illness from cancer to heart disease to tooth decay to diabetes. But it took many decades for that to be noticed by anyone of importance in society. So in the 1940’s, the government first encouraged, then required bread manufacturers to add some nutrients back to the bread. This move alone almost eliminated the now-unknown deficiency diseases of pellagra and beriberi.

Of course, they didn’t add back the same things they took out; but they added a few minerals, from other sources (by-products of the ammunitions industry, in many cases), and even this tiny change made a massive difference in the widespread vitamin deficiency in the first half of the twentieth century.

Bread companies resisted this at first, but then realized it was an advertising miracle; so Wonder Bread, touting the eight minerals they were adding back to enrich their depleted flour, began advertising “wonder Bread helps build strong bodies eight ways!” A decade later more nutrients were required and it became “…helps build strong bodies twelve ways!”

Of course, the irony is that the whole thinking was flawed; the wheat as God had made it was whole; it helped build strong bodies in EVERY way. Not merely twelve. Whole wheat flour needed no enriching, for it was still “whole.” And even after the half-hearted enrichment program, it still only added back a handful of elements, usually from artificial sources, and then only a tiny fraction of the many that were removed.

This was done to most grains; rice was milled to become “white rice.” Barley was “pearled.” Had man trusted God’s creation and used whole wheat flour – done nothing else right, and ONLY ate whole, instead of white, flour – most of the diseases we have today would not exist, or at least would be much less prevalent.

But now let’s get back to manna. Manna is the grain of God, the bread of heaven. And God gave this manna to man. And had man taken it whole, as God had intended, it would have satisfied him and given him eternal life. But man couldn’t take God at His word. He had to alter God; change Him and His word to say something else.

Jeremiah 2:11 (NKJV) Has a nation changed its gods, Which are not gods? But My people have changed their Glory For what does not profit.

Rotherham translates the last half of that verse better when it says “my people have changed MY glory for that which could not profit.” They changed the glory and perfection of God for that which does not profit! They ALTERED God! They REFINED Him! They took His spirit and removed the parts of it they didn’t like, they gathered that manna and ran it through a mill and made WHITE manna that COULD NOT PROFIT them! Still retaining the appearance, but without any of the SUBSTANCE of the spirit of God!

2 Timothy 3:5 Having a FORM of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away.

This substance of God is what SAVES you! It’s the WHOLE WHEAT MANNA that you must eat on a daily basis to be spiritually whole – just as the WHOLE WHEAT BREAD you must eat to be physically whole. If you try to live off of white bread or white manna from which all minerals, vitamins, and body-building and spirit-building substances have been removed and discarded, YOU WILL SURELY DIE!

Matthew 23:28 Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.

Mankind has taken the “nasty” parts out of God’s religion. They don’t judge others. They don’t require obedience to God’s law of themselves, much less of others. They’ve created an image of God which is fake; a man-made concoction defining a Jesus who does not exist and never did exist. A Jesus who forgives without your repentance; who will endlessly overlook any number of willful sins you might commit; a Jesus who just “loves” everyone and tolerates sin and any amount of wrongdoing from anyone, and STILL saves them.

BUT THE SPIRIT OF GOD DOES NOT SAY THAT! The spirit of God inspires us as it did David, to HATE those who HATE God!

Psalms 139:21 Do not I hate them, O LORD, that hate thee? and am not I grieved with those that rise up against thee?

But today all religions everywhere have taken pieces from the Bible and built a church around those pieces. Not one takes the whole Bible, the entire inspired word of God, and believes it. Most can’t even agree with an entire verse and must quote fractions of verses to try and prove their points. These all are eating refined white manna. Some indeed have a few pieces of truth they’ve added back to this refining – Baptists, Seventh Day Adventists, Jehovah’s Witnesses – each believe some truth. Each have added a few things back to their “manna” after it was refined. And so each believes they are better than all other brands of bread because their bread is enriched and now they can advertise “we help build strong bodies twelve ways!” – but if they had just taken the whole manna in the first place, there would have been no need for those additions.

You, if you want to be saved, will have to eat – and learn to LIKE – the WHOLE manna.

Jeremiah 3:23 Truly in vain is salvation hoped for from the hills, and from the multitude of mountains: truly in the LORD our God is the salvation of Israel.

But now let’s build on this concept a bit. As Israel left Egypt, and before they reached Sinai, they were under no covenant. It wasn’t until they reached Mt. Sinai that they reached an agreement with God

Exodus 24:7 And he took the book of the covenant, and read in the audience of the people: and they said, All that the LORD hath said will we do, and be obedient.

It was at this point, after Moses read the covenant – the contract – to all the people, that they agreed and said that they would obey God. Remember that these things happened to them for an example and to teach us lessons today (1 Corinthians 10:11). And so today baptism symbolizes this same contract, on a spiritual level.

As you are baptized you agree to obey God in whatever God says. But before you are baptized, God first introduces Himself to you; gives you a few laws to obey, so that you may get to know Him and He may get to know you, to see whether you are the sort of person He wants in His Kingdom. And God did the same thing with Ancient Israel:

Exodus 16:4 Then said the LORD unto Moses, Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you; and the people shall go out and gather a certain rate every day, that I may prove them, whether they will walk in my law, or no.

God said that THIS WAS A TEST! He was going to FIND OUT if they would obey Him, or not – BEFORE He gave them the covenant at Sinai! This command was given on a Saturday, and manna began to fall the next morning. They gathered it all week and observed that if they kept any overnight, it stank and bred worms.

Verses 22-25 And it came to pass, that on the sixth day they gathered twice as much bread… And he said unto them… To morrow is the rest of the holy sabbath unto the LORD… And they laid it up till the morning, as Moses bade: and it did not stink, neither was there any worm therein. And Moses said, Eat that to day; for to day is a sabbath unto the LORD: to day ye shall not find it in the field.

The sabbath was the first command God gave them to test them, after their initial call from Egypt. And He gave them this command six days before they were to start obeying it. And as soon as He gave them the command, He gave them manna. If they didn’t accept the command, and do it like God had said, the manna they had spoiled and they lost it.

Verses 27-28 And it came to pass, that there went out some of the people on the seventh day for to gather, and they found none. And the LORD said unto Moses, How long refuse ye to keep my commandments and my laws?

Before every person is baptized or enters into any covenant with God, God first must call them out of the world as Israel was called out of Egypt. Then God gives them a test command; perhaps it is Christmas, or Easter, or the Sabbath; but whatever it is, God proves them.

As soon as God gives them this command, as soon as it comes into their mind, God’s spirit – the manna – falls on them so that they CAN understand this command, otherwise it would be “foolishness to them.” God MUST give them His spirit when He gives them the command, or they CANNOT understand!

1 Corinthians 2:14 But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.

And God gives them time to sort out this command; all the time they need. Time to make sure they understand it and change. That may be a few hours before Christmas dinner for some, or it may be the six months before Easter for others; but He gives them enough time to make the change and do something about it, if they are interested. And so they must gather this manna from God every day;

Matthew 6:11 Give us this day our daily bread.

If at any time they reject God’s command, whatever that command is, the manna they received breeds worms and stinks. And man knows this! Man knows that God’s manna will STINK if they don’t take proper care of it! It doesn’t have a shelf-life of even one day!

Ezekiel 18:24 (NKJV) But when a righteous man turns away from his righteousness and commits iniquity, and does according to all the abominations that the wicked man does, shall he live? All the righteousness which he has done shall not be remembered; because of the unfaithfulness of which he is guilty and the sin which he has committed, because of them he shall die.

Many people obey God very well at first, and then think that because they did all those good deeds, that they’ve “stored up” some karma; some treasures in heaven. But it doesn’t matter how much manna you gather in one day!

Exodus 16:18 And when they did mete it with an omer, he that gathered much had nothing over, and he that gathered little had no lack; they gathered every man according to his eating.

No matter HOW much manna you’ve stored up, it will STINK in the morning! You can’t keep it over! That’s so unfair, man said! Surely many good deeds cancel out one or two bad ones! To continue in Ezekiel…

Ezekiel 18:25 (NKJV) Yet you say, ‘The way of the Lord is not fair.’ Hear now, O house of Israel, is it not My way which is fair, and your ways which are not fair?

Jesus warns us about that attitude in the New Testament as well. See, men want a vacation from anything unpleasant they have to do. If they hate their job, they want time off; if they hate their home, they want to take a trip. If they hate the commandments, they want to be able to sin a bit without being punished for it.

Luke 12:16-19 And he spake a parable unto them, saying, The ground of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully: And he thought within himself, saying, What shall I do, because I have no room where to bestow my fruits? And he said, This will I do: I will pull down my barns, and build greater; and there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods. And I will say TO MY SOUL, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry.

When your soul takes its ease, when it relaxes in its fight against sin and the carnality in all of us, YOUR SOUL WILL SHRIVEL AND DIE!

Luke 12:20-21 But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided? So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.

Man HATES this idea! Man HATES being locked into a box, a permanent relationship with a Being whose laws he hates! So man had an idea! Why not strip the germ and bran from the manna? Why not take the parts that make the manna stink, the parts that the worms can eat, the parts that require unpleasantness and obedience and sacrifice, and make WHITE manna? A cleaner, purer-looking form of Godliness that the worms won’t eat?

Why not IMPROVE God’s spirit – make Him nicer, kinder, gentler. Make Him less of a RULER and more of a BUDDY! One who relies on Karma, and a few bad deeds can’t cancel out a lifetime of good deeds. And so with this in mind man made a false religion, modeled after a false God. A God who, once you “give your heart to Jesus,” will save you FOREVER, no matter WHAT you do, for that one “good” act. This improved version of God’s spirit, “enriched white manna” never expires, never gets eaten by worms, never is attacked by decay. Nothing you can do can get you UNsaved once you “call on the name of the Lord” once.

But God’s manna spoils in you. God’s manna must be renewed DAY BY DAY. It’s a lifetime process of work and maintenance that you must DAILY obey God, DAILY stir up the spirit to keep it from going stale.

The Israelites ate manna every day up until the day that they entered the promised land; whole manna, not bleached, enriched, white manna. Once they entered the promised land, it stopped falling for then they were eating the fruits of the promised land. Until then, it was their only food, and to stop eating it was to die. Just as we must take in the spirit of God every day until we enter that heavenly promised land; to stop eating it is to spiritually die. To try to store up a week’s supply so we can stop eating the nasty old manna is to have it breed worms and die.

The world’s version of the holy spirit doesn’t decay, just as their version of God’s gift of bread doesn’t decay on the shelf. White flour is much easier to keep – but white flour makes your teeth rot out, your heart stop pumping, all your organs develop cancer and makes you die a sick cripple before your time.

White manna does the same thing to your soul. Even if it is enriched by the ways that seem right to men and a few true doctrines.