Ep. 9 | The Design of the Desert (Part 2)
Text: Exodus 3:1
Now Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law, Jethro, the priest of Midian, and he led his flock to the west side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God.
In the last epispde —
PORTRAIT of the Wilderness:
DESOLATE
DANGEROUS
DISORIENTING
DISPICABLE
PURPOSE of the Wilderness:
ETYMOLOGY of MIDBAR:
CONSTRUCTION of MIDBAR
CONNECTIONS to MIDBAR:
EARS in the MIDBAR:
EDUCATION of the MIDBAR:
PROVISION in the WILDERNESS:
Revelation FROM God
Revelation OF God
If you want to know God as your Comforter, do you expect Him to zap you with the mere knowledge or provide you the experience where you will taste His comfort?
To know Him as Comforter, there is a prerequisite of grief or distress.
To know God as your Healer, there is a prerequisite of sickness or disease.
To know God as your Strength, there is a prerequisite of weakness. In that His strength is made perfect.
To know God as your Provider, there is a prerequisite of need.
To know God as your Peace, there is a prerequisite of unrest.
To know God as your Sustainer, there is a prerequisite of a prolonged trial.
To know God as your Defender, there is a prerequisite of being accused.
To know God as your Resurrection, there is a prerequisite of the grave.
PROMISE for the WILDERNESS:
The wilderness is NOT your final chapter. It wasn’t for Moses and it’s not for you…you might say, what about the thousands/millions who die there later on? True, but the wilderness wasn’t designed for that. It was designed to form them…not destroy them. To bless them. Not to banish them. To conform them…no to condemn them. AND yours is as well!
PRODUCT of the WILDERNESS:
Genuine GROWTH happens in the wilderness
The WILDERNESS can be…
FERTILE Ground (Fertile ground can be good for crops or weeds)
For growth or grumbling
For intimacy or isolation
For Potential or Peril
For hearing God’s voice or heeding man’s threats
For Deliverance or Defeat
For Commitment or Compromise
For Reconciliation or Retaliation
For faith or fear
There are three ways you can respond to your wilderness.
APATHY: I don’t need it. You might ask, “Why must I suffer?”
ANXIETY. I’m tired of it. You might respond, “Let’s be done with this.”
ACCEPTANCE. I accept it. You might respond, “Lord, have your way!”
John Nelson Darby: “This world is a wilderness wide”
This world is a wilderness wide
I have nothing to seek or to choose;
I’ve no thought in the waste to abide;
I’ve nothing to regret or to lose.
—The path where our Savior is gone
Has led up to His Father and God—
To the place where He's now on the throne,
And His strength shall be mine on the road.
With Him shall our rest be on high,
When in holiness bright I sit down—
In the joy of His love ever nigh—
In the peace that His presence shall crown.
—’Tis the treasure I’ve found in His love,
That has made me now pilgrims below;
And 'tis there, when O reach Him above,
As I’m known, all His fulness I’ll know.
And, Savior, 'tis Thou from on high,
I await till the time Thou shalt come
To take him Thou hast led by Thine eye,
To Thyself in Thy heavenly home.
Don’t waste your wilderness.
