Show Notes
The Wilderness?
A Place to be Shaped in God's Image
Exodus 15:1-2
View Full Transcript
Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] To follow, well, our title of our message, the wilderness, a place to be shaped in God's image.
[00:00:12] The father drew Jesus into the wilderness. And all of us have experienced wilderness in our lives. And so that's what we're going to talk about this morning. Here there was a christian businessman, John D. Beckett, shares the following personal experience that a dentist. He says that he was at the dentist and he was being prepped to have a filling replaced.
[00:00:33] And just as his mouth was filled with dental hardware, so that he could hardly mumble, the dental technician out of the blue, she says, you're Mister Beckett, aren't you? And I grunted a cent. And she says, well, I want to thank you for firing my husband.
[00:00:50] I was stuck. I couldn't move, I couldn't speak. I could only listening to the ensuing monologue. It happened ten years ago, she said, a few days after your company hired my husband, he was notified that he had failed a drug test. You may not recall, but, she continued, but you called him into your office before he left, and you said, I realize I don't have any choice but to terminate you, but I want to tell you something. He says, you're at a crossroads in your life. He says, you can keep going the way that you're going, and the results are very predictable, or you can take this as a wake up call. You can decide you're going to turn your life around.
[00:01:36] I'm sure the technician couldn't see the beads of sweat and perspiration on my forehead under all this paraphernalia. As she continued, she said, I want you to know that my husband took your advice today. He is a good father, he's a good husband, and he has a fine job. Thank you for firing my husband. You know, sometimes we go through these kinds of difficulties and we can't find work or whatever the circumstances might come because of this. And it can be very hard for us.
[00:02:08] And I remember as a young man coming to that crossroads, you know, it was a time in my life, it's just so clear. I was like 17 at the time. But I remember I had warrants up for my arrest, and I owed. It's just up to my eyeballs in debt, and I owed everybody money, my friends and everybody that knew me. And I realized that if I didn't make some changes in my life because it felt too overwhelming then to try to change or fix things, but I knew that if I didn't start working towards fixing things and make some changes, that it was only going to be even more overwhelming. And harder for me to come back to getting my life straightened out.
[00:02:47] And so I did. And I changed the direction I started working on. It went down to the courthouse, and I turned myself in with all these warrants that I held from arrest. And they were so good to me down there. They worked to help me get my life straightened around. It was great. You know, it was incredibly hard, the process of going through to getting to the place where I got everything straightened around. But it was a time of maturity in my life, a time when I was growing up, becoming from a young man to just a little older man, a little bit more mature. And there's also hard times that come along in our lives that we have no control over. And those can be very difficult times. And they are really like a wilderness journey in our lives. They can be long wilderness journeys in our lives. They can be short wilderness journeys in our lives, but they can be wilderness tough and hard. And God has chosen the wilderness places in our lives to speak to us and to show us that his arm is not too short to come down into our lives, get involved and work with us and help us. But I've always asked the question over the years, why the wilderness, Lord? Why would you choose the wilderness? Why, hashem, have you done this? Taken the foolish things of the world to confound the wise? You know, because our human nature likes the knight in shining armor. We like the hero of the story. We like them feel good stories. And the feel good stories are when the hero comes through. But God, he's taken the foolish things of this world, and he's using them to speak to us. We need to stop and think about what God is saying when he's saying in this verse here in Isaiah 55 eight, that my thoughts are nothing like your thoughts, says the Lord. And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine. You know, good verses to ponder on, think about. Over the years, as I've been getting to know the Lord, I've been a Christian for around 45 years, and getting to know him through prayer, getting to know him through his word. You know, for these past 45 years, I have not always been a saint and have hit a lot of pitfalls along the way, but I have been getting to know him for 45 years. And over these years, as I have, I've always been amazed at how God does things. He's so unlike me. And the people that God chooses is another thing. You know, we should never sell ourselves short. You know, I feel like we haven't got anything to offer. We need to just give our head a shake when we think like that, because this is God who we're dealing with here. He's the one that's speaking to us to do whatever it is he's asking us to do. A good example in the text here this morning is Moses. Moses is a good example because he's been called to go to speak to pharaoh. Pharaoh being the leader of the superpower of the world. Moses just a shepherd man, and he's. You know, I've heard it said that Moses was a stutterer, something that he stuttered, because look what he says here in Exodus. Well, maybe I'm jumping ahead one.
[00:06:11] Exodus 410, he says. But Moses pleaded with the Lord, o Lord, I am not very good with words. I never have been. I am not now, even though you have spoken to me, I get tongue tied and my words get tangled. You know, if we would just say yes, seek the Lord and say yes when he speaks to us and let him take us through the process of where he wants to take us, we would do things that we never imagined we would do. It says it's only entered into the imagination, has just twinkled in our imaginations. What God has prepared for us to come. We have no idea when we need to yield ourselves to the Lord and let him work through us, because it seems like the less likely we are the one to do it, the more God wants to do it. But the fact that Moses would get tongue tied and his words get tangled.
[00:07:03] Proverbs 35 is a perfect verse for us. Trust in the Lord with all of your heart.
[00:07:11] Do not depend on your own understanding. Looking at this picture here, you know, the world would look at this, and you'd say, God can bring good things of something like this. You know, they would just shake their head, like, what a dumb thing. Because this here is a picture of a young lady many of us and most of us have probably seen at one time in our lives.
[00:07:35] It's a picture of a young lady named Fan Tai Kim Phuk. And June 8, 1972, a Nate bomb was dropped on her village. And Kim, who was just nine years old at the time, in this picture, she's running and she's crying from her hiding place in the village temple in Vietnam. And we see Kim's arms outstretched and in terror and pain. Skin was flapping from her legs as she cried out, Nankwa. Nankwa. Which means too hot. Too hot. Such a sad picture.
[00:08:15] Doctors said that Kim would not survive. But after 14 months, after 14 months in the hospital and 17 surgeries, she was returned to her family. Yet despite the miraculous recovery, Kim was seldom free from pain, nightmares, and anger. The anger inside me, she says, was like the hatred as high as the mountainous, and my bitterness was as black as old coffee. I hated my life. I hated all people because they were normal and I was not. I wanted to die so many times. Doctors healed my wounds, but they could not heal my broken heart.
[00:08:59] While spending time in a library, Kim found a Bible, and she started reading the New Testament. And she said the more she read, the more confused she got. She got to thinking, okay, is my religion right, or is the Bible right? And after she talked to a friend about it, who had a friend, or her brother in law, who had a friend who was a Christian, she met with him with her long list of questions, and at the end of a visit with them, he invited her to a Christmas service at his church, where Kim said at the end of the service was the turning point for her life. She says, I remember I could not wait to trust the Lord. She said, jesus helped me to learn to forgive my enemies, and I finally had peace in my heart and my mind.
[00:09:52] Now when I look at my scars and suffer pain, I'm thankful the Lord put his mark on my body to remind me that he was with me at all, all the time. Like, that's quite a statement for a young lady like that to come to that point. Only a believer could say something like that, since God, in his wisdom, saw to it that the world would never know him. Through human wisdom, he has used our foolish preaching to save those who will believe.
[00:10:22] In God's economy, pain tends to bring forth new faith.
[00:10:27] How often do we have we heard it? Somebody say, you know, I'm thankful for the difficulty I went through back then. And, you know, there's many difficult times in my life. I'm thankful God allowed me to go through them. At the time, they didn't make sense. At the time, they were the most difficult thing. But when I look back at what I learned through it and what God taught me and how he gave me compassion in my heart towards others that go through the same kind of. So many good things come from it. I thank him for the difficulties that I've had to experience in the past. You know, at the time when we're going through these difficulties, it's pretty hard to find grace in the midst of our suffering.
[00:11:10] We can thank God, thank him for the good times that come from the fire and these times in our lives, our wilderness experiences as we sojourn on to our promised land in this life. And that is what we're talking about this morning. I want to talk about why the wilderness? And so, Lord, we just commit this message to you this next 1520 minutes to you. Lord, we pray. Did you help us to hear what your spirit is saying to each one of us? We're all in different places.
[00:11:45] We all have struggles, Lord God, of some kind or another. Some of us are going through very hard, hard times in our lives right now. And others, Lord God, we're maybe enjoying a season that is not as difficult. But, Lord, we all do sometime or another, experience these journeys through a wilderness season. I pray that you would be with everybody that's going through this type of thing. I pray that you'd help us to hear what you would want us to hear that we could have in our heart, Lord God, that when we enter into these places, if we're not there, that we could. Could be prepared, and if we're in them, that we could be encouraged and comforted and just encouraged to keep moving forward. And if we've just come through them, Lord, that we can look back and appreciate all that you've done in the midst of them. In Jesus name, amen.
[00:12:35] Jeremiah.
[00:12:37] He describes the wilderness in a forbidding sense of an uninhabitable land, a land of deserts and pits, a land of drought and deep darkness, a land that no one passes through, where no one dwells. You know, I want us to just use our imagination a little bit here this morning.
[00:12:58] Imagine a vast desert stretching out before you with towering sand dunes shimmering in the heat of the sun. The wilderness surrounds you, unforgiving and relentless in its harshness, the heat beating down on you, feelings of being lost, weary and parched, unsure of which way to turn to navigate through this challenging terrain.
[00:13:24] You know, this is an image of the parallel, of how we sometimes feel in life. It's a picture of how uncertainties that we encounter at different times in our lives affect us emotionally. Sometimes we feel as though we are wandering through a spiritual and emotional wilderness, grappling with loneliness, doubt, and struggles that seem like they are insurmountable.
[00:13:50] The scriptures speak of so many accounts of so many individuals. I think just about every individual scripture talks about, there's a wilderness journey in there somewhere, facing tests of temptation, moments of divine intervention by God himself.
[00:14:06] And God does intervene, and he does come to us in our time of wilderness.
[00:14:12] Even Jesus needed to be encouraged in his wilderness journey. The spirit led him to the wilderness, and it was such an intense time. He needed to be encouraged at the end of this wilderness journey. And we see that in Matthew 411, it says, then the devil went away and angels came and took care of Jesus.
[00:14:33] Jesus. There was the amount of transfiguration when Moses and Elijah come and spoke with Jesus to encourage him. He was on his way to Jerusalem to be crucified, to be tortured, to be mutilated. And this was not an easy thought for him. And he needed to be encouraged and directed. And God sent Elijah and Moses to encourage him. The apostle Paul was on his way to Rome, and he was in this terrible storm, and it looked like the ship was not going to make it. It was falling apart. But in acts 27 23, 24, Paul needed to be encouraged by the spirit. And Paul says, for last night, an angel of God, to whom I belong and whom I served, stood beside me.
[00:15:20] Don't be afraid, Paul said, for you will surely stand trial before Caesar. What's more, God in his goodness, has granted safety to everyone sailing with you.
[00:15:33] God will come to you when you need. Encouraging these wilderness experiences teach us valuable lessons of endurance, of faith, and of the transformative power of God's presence.
[00:15:53] The Israelites in Exodus, beginning of Exodus, we see they're slaves, and they've been in this bondage of slavery for 400 years. Moses has been spoken to by God. He's called to be the one to lead the children of Israel out. And it says, then the Lord told him, I have certainly seen the oppression of my people in Egypt. I have heard their cries of distress because of the harsh slave drivers. Yes, I am aware of their suffering. So I have come down to rescue them from the power of the Egyptians and lead them out of Egypt into their own fertile, spacious land. It is a land flowing with milk and honey, a land where the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, perzites, Hivites, and the Jebusites now live.
[00:16:42] Look, the cry of the people of Israel has reached me. And I have seen how harshly the Egyptians abused them. And at just the right time in history, God called Moses, led him to the bush in the wilderness to speak to him and tell him that he's the one that is to go and to deliver Israel from the Egyptians.
[00:17:05] And after many signs and wonders, God does deliver his people.
[00:17:10] And they are just about to begin their journey into the wilderness, heading toward the promised land. And it says in Exodus 14 through 28, just a few verses here. Then the waters returned and covered all the chariots and charioteers, the entire army of Pharaoh, of all the Egyptians who had chased the Israelites into the sea. Not a single one survived.
[00:17:36] But the people of Israel had walked through the middle of the sea on dry ground as the water stood up like a wall on both sides. That is how the Lord rescued Israel from the hands of Egyptians that day. And the Israelites saw the bodies of the Egyptians washed up on the shore. And when the people of Israel saw the mighty power that the Lord had unleashed against the Egyptians, they were filled with awe before him. They put their faith in the Lord and his servant, Moses. Then Moses and the people of Israel sang this song to the Lord. I will sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously. He has hurled both horse and rider into the sea. The Lord is my strength and my song. He has given me victory. This is my God, and I will praise him, my father's God. I will exalt him. This song is a song of victory. As they witnessed the debris washing up on the shore. And the hope of their new frontier that stood before them. It was a powerful expression of their gratitude and the triumph and awe that all the miraculous events that had taken place in unfolded before their very eyes.
[00:18:50] The lyrics of the horse and rider thrown into the sea, it encapsulates the dramatic scene of the egyptian army being defeated as the waters of the Red Sea came crashing down on them. It symbolized the ultimate victory of the oppressed over the oppressor, of the weak over the mighty, and of faith over doubt. And with this song, the Israelites celebrated not only their physical deliverance from slavery. Slavery. But also the spiritual liberation from the chains of bondage that they all knew too well.
[00:19:23] It was a declaration of their newfound freedom, their unwavering faith in their God. And their confidence in this journey that lies ahead of them going to the promised land. As they sang together, their voices rising in unison, the Israelites found strength in their unity and I solidarity.
[00:19:45] Nothing could defeat these guys at this time, as far as they were concerned. The song became a rallying cry, a reminder of the miracles that they had witnessed. And the divine protection that had guided them this far.
[00:19:57] With hearts full of gratitude and eyes fixed on the horizon of the wilderness, the Israelites embraced their destiny with courage and determination, knowing that they were the chosen people, a holy nation, a royal priesthood destined for greatness. And led by God himself, who would never forsake them. What a place they would have been in their minds and their hearts. And so the Israelites sang, horse and rider thrown into the sea. The echoes of the freedom reverberating through the air, resonating with joy, relief and hope that filled their hearts as they embarked on this new chapter in their journey toward the promised land. God had yet to reveal who he was. He showed him that he was. There's no doubt in their minds that God was there, and he's real. And the miracles and the signs and wonders they saw, they knew that God was real, but yet they didn't know him in their heart.
[00:21:00] And he had to teach them that he was not like them and that they had. They did not think the way he did not think the way that they thought. See, they needed to learn this, and there was a process to this whole thing that they didn't really quite think about. And it's like with us, it's a process. Our whole life is a process, you know? And this is where we need to pay close attention here, because I believe that God is wanting to encourage us this morning with the same words, to help us to understand who he is and why he has chosen the wilderness in life. The dry and barren places, the land of deserts and pits, the land through death and drought, where no one lives or even travels to be. The places where he reveals himself and speaks to us.
[00:21:54] Looking at the wilderness this morning, let's draw inspiration from this, you know, from all of those people that have gone all through history before us. We can be inspired by them if we have ears to hear what God is saying this morning, our faith will be stirred. A trust will begin within us that even the most barren and desolate places that we go to will know that we know that we know in our hearts that everything that's going to happen doesn't matter what happens to us. We're going to be okay.
[00:22:29] We will know that God is with us, leading us and guiding us through the wilderness towards a deeper understanding of who he is and his purposes and provision for our lives.
[00:22:42] You know, have you ever found yourself in this season of wandering and feeling lost and alone and in a vast wilderness of emotion? You know, I'm sure that just about, if not all of us, just about all of us could say, yeah, I have been there, I've done that, and I don't like that, you know, because I've been there, I've done that, and I don't like that. I don't want to be in that place, you know, but the wilderness can be a place of uncertainty, a place of testing of our faith, and a place where we're being pushed to the limits of our endurance. But that's what it's meant to do.
[00:23:20] And we see throughout the pages of scripture, that the wilderness plays a crucial role in the spiritual journey of all of God's people. And so it's imperative that we understand the significance of the wilderness in the context of our faith and try to discover why it is that God leads us to these barren places.
[00:23:39] You know, of all the ways God could do things, you know, over the years, I've said, lord, your God, you just spoke things into existence, and it's made exactly the way that you wanted to make it. You could have made it different, you know, why didn't you make it like this? Why don't you speak like this to us when we're in our oasis?
[00:23:58] But the crazy thing is that we're not quite as intently looking or listening or even, you know, turning his direction. When we're in this oasis, we're too busy having a good time and relaxed. And I find it's hard to get off the couch and go cut the grass when I'm feeling pretty good about where I'm sitting on that couch with my little iced tea and all. And it just tends to be our human nature, where we're at. And it's like, man, oh, man, God has to draw us into these uncomfortable places where we squeeze us out and gets our attention, saying, okay, lord, help me here. And they start to seek, okay, what is God trying to tell me?
[00:24:36] As we grow on our faith and we become more grounded in seeing how God uses our difficult times in our lives, we will see that they help us to understand more clearly the value in humility.
[00:24:51] A broken and contrite heart, the Lord says, is what he seeks. The importance of tests in our lives and how crucial it is that we just slow down and recognize our need to know Jesus Christ intimately, to have a relationship with him. Where he's talking to us, we're hearing him speak to us, and we're speaking to him. We're having fellowship with him. He's a part of our lives, the central part of our lives, everything we're doing, it's like we're talking to ourselves, but it's not because we're talking to Jesus.
[00:25:25] We need to have that relationship with him.
[00:25:28] Now. Karen and I have been going through a season of wilderness for the last few years.
[00:25:35] Shortly after, I noticed, like, I just noticed that mom dementia was starting in mom. And shortly after, I noticed that she had three many strokes where it stopped her from being able to talk and she couldn't communicate with us.
[00:25:48] And then her dementia was started to get to the point where, as a family, we decided we need to put her in a home because she had fallen down a couple times and one time hit her head really very bad. And it was putting so much pressure on dad because she was setting the table for all the kids that were long since gone. You know, it was just getting very difficult. We could see the stress this was putting on dad. And so as a family, we decided we'd put her into the home in Lacombe, the dementia ward there. And then, you know, we're going to leave and she wants to come with us, and we can't take her home with us. You know, how difficult is that?
[00:26:24] So hard. And it was a tough time for all of us. And then, you know, my dad is struggling. He's married for more than 65 years to mom, and he's walking away from her and he's just in tears. It's just really hard on him. And then it's hard on us. Watching, doing that and then watching dad grieve this, I guess two things going on there that we're having to wrestle with. And so all of this pressure's going on, you know, so watching dad grieve, trying to be there and support him. He lives in Bentley, and so I try to get out there once a week to see him, you know, and right at this time, this is going on and trying to support dad. My sister's diagnosed with lung cancer, in terminal, inoperable lung cancer. And they give her, you know, about, I think they said eight months. She should make it eight months if she did chemo. And they told her, she said, I'm not doing chemo. And they said, well, you got two weeks. And then she said, okay, I'll do chemo.
[00:27:23] She's done chemo. And out of all of that, the beauty in that is the times of sharing the gospel with her, you know, going, taking and making a point, saying, okay, you know, I've got to try and make it clear the gospel message to her and being able to sit down with her and talk to her and pray with her. And then a prayer meeting here. Tuesday nights, we're here praying, and I, I'm texting her saying, Brenda, I'm praying for you. And she texts back, thanks. And then she's sending me, you know, some prognosis the doctor's given, and it's good news that, you know, it hasn't progressed too badly. And, you know, she's thanking God for sustaining her to today. She's still with us today and she's still going through. And it's just a matter of time. She's got a leaky aneurysm that's supposed to burst any time, and she'll go within 7 seconds, they said, when that thing bursts. And so, anyways, going through all of this and then trying to support dad and watching him, you know, the anxiety and the pressure it's putting on him pretty intense at times.
[00:28:21] And then Karen's mom, who lives with us, she's. Her dementia is really firing up in her, and she can't remember much past two minutes. And then. So you have a very short conversation down there. You're visiting with her. This goes around, around.
[00:28:36] And, you know, I'm just keeping an eye on Karen because, you know, she spends lots of time with her. And this could just go on, you know, on and on.
[00:28:45] But. So it's been a little bit of a journey. This has been the last four or five years for Karen and I. And so we've had our little wilderness journey through this whole thing. But the amazing thing in this wilderness journey, God has been so good. There's been many blessings. Like my sister. All of this is worth it for my sister to come to know the Lord and have a peace in her heart about, okay, when I do die of cancer, it's okay, because she knows there's good things in store. When my mom died, my mom did die just last September. My sister took home her bibles, and I showed her where to start reading in her bibles. And, you know, all of that is a good thing. If all of this pressure, it brings only that one thing out of it, it's worth it. But there's so many more good things have come out of this whole thing. Our family is very tight, and it's just. It's lots of good in it. But it's been a journey and it's been intense.
[00:29:39] So as I've been reading and studying this wilderness story about Israel and all the characters in the scriptures, you know, one thing that becomes very apparent, that it's never in vain for not even one of them. It's not in vain. It's not for nothing. God uses all things in our lives. You know, he brings it all to good. And I believe it's the way that he takes the enemy and just slaps them upside the head. Anything that the enemy tries to do to us, God says he'll turn it and make it for good. And, you know, it's like, I don't know why the enemy even tries, because God is so good.
[00:30:14] But these wilderness times can be very difficult. I know that there's a lot of people in our congregation. We have never done so many funerals in our congregation, and even from outside the congregation. I did a funeral last Wednesday, last Thursday. I'm doing a funeral this Wednesday. I got a phone call yesterday of someone else that's dying. And, like, it's just. This is crazy how it's gone this last two, three months for Paul and I and for the church.
[00:30:45] But, you know, the apostle Paul, he was in a difficult. He had what we know as the thorn of the flesh. And it says in corinthians, it says three different times. I begged the Lord. He begged the Lord to take it away from him. You know, some believe that it was his eyes, because in the writings of the gospel or some of the letters he drew, you can see I've written in my own handwriting because it's much bigger writing. They believe that he had something to do with his eyes. And there's other thinking. But God said to him, he said, my grace is all you need.
[00:31:21] My power works through weakness.
[00:31:25] So now I am glad to boast about my weakness so that the power of Christ can work through me. It's like this young lady said, this nate bomb was dropped on her. She says, now, when I look at myself scars or suffer pain, I am thankful that the Lord put his mark on my body to remind me that he's with me all the time. That's quite a statement from some situation like that. God tells us why he took the children of Israel to the wilderness in deuteronomy eight two. He says, remember how the Lord, your God, led you through the wilderness these 40 years, humbling you and testing you to prove your character and to find out whether or not you would obey his commands. Yes, he humbled you by letting you go hungry and then feeding you with manna, a food previously unknown to you and your ancestors. He did it to teach you that people do not live by bread alone. Rather, we live by every word that comes from the mouth of God.
[00:32:29] You know, we don't know that these aren't the last of the last days that we're living in. When, you know, like, when the world is saying what is going on in our world and when you have the rumors, wars and rumors of wars, like, that is a crazy thing how that's all percolating around our world when you see this, the olympic openings. There was one boat that went by that was a boat that had people all stripes, were mocking the Lord's supper.
[00:33:01] And, like, it's just crazy what's going on in our world, and it's public. It's getting more and more aggressive. And we don't know that these aren't the last of the last days. We don't know that things aren't winding down. You know, Jesus says when the end comes, it's going to come swiftly. You know, what are they going to be doing when the end comes? Like he says, it's going to be as the days of Noah. You're going to. To be giving and taking in marriage and then the end. But we don't know that it's not winding down to the place where it maybe won't get better. Maybe it's going to continue to get worse. We don't know. And we want to be ready, and we got to be ready. To those who have a biblical worldview, it's not as near as much pressure. It gives you angst in your soul to see this kind of thing going on. But, you know that, you know, our destiny is the promised land. You know, we may be in for a wilderness journey as a nation, we don't know. But if our hearts are set on the things above, it's okay. These three purposes, you know, God, he uses the wilderness to humble us, to test us, and to teach us, ultimately leading us to himself. And these three purposes, they play out in every wilderness story that's in the scriptures. And not only to understand the experiences for the Israelites and their wilderness journey, but also we need to see how God uses these wilderness journeys in our lives to prepare us for what is in store, you know, so the bottom line is, God is a good God. He's a perfect father.
[00:34:39] And God comes to Israel with a very soul searching question. The wilderness is. It fosters humility.
[00:34:49] And then he comes to Israel and he says, to Israel, he says, and I think that he's coming to us this morning with the same question.
[00:35:03] I have a couple of extra slides in here.
[00:35:07] He says, will you trust me when all the fundamentals for survival are not in sight? You know, this question really means something to us. Will you trust me when all the fundamentals for survival are not in sight?
[00:35:23] The question was answered by Israel when God said, will you trust me in this place in the wilderness, where there is no grain, where there is no water, where there is no. None of the life sustaining necessities that you might otherwise know? And the answers that Israel gave were the answer. It was quite stark. And I think that we need to, you know, really think this through. Think about this after this service, because the people, they blamed Moses and they said, if only we had died in the Lord's presence with our brothers.
[00:36:02] Why did you bring us, bring the Lord's community into this wilderness, that we and our livestock should die here?
[00:36:10] Why did you bring us out of Egypt to this terrible place? It has no grain, no figs, grapevines or pomegranates, and there is no water to drink.
[00:36:24] This is quite the question, you know. Will you trust me? This question looks quite different when you're living in the midst of prosperity. You're living in the midst where all your needs are being met. This question looked quite different in Egypt. Will you trust me?
[00:36:42] Israel said, no. They said, either take us back to Egypt or take us into the promised land. But we hate this place right here. When they got to the promised land, they didn't trust the Lord to go into the promised land and therefore were cursed till that whole generation that would not believe God died off and that next generation came to the promised land. And it's amazing the victories that they had, because that generation was, I think, about sick of the wilderness and said, yes, give us the promised landlord, whatever you say. He raised up that generation, trained them to. Brought them to the place where they were willing and were ready to take the promised land, you know? So overall, the wilderness experience, it serves as a time of testing, of purification for the children of Israel and for us. And it's shaping them to be a people who will be ready to enter in the promised land.
[00:37:40] So you can see that the miracles is not what changed the children of Israel and what changes us. You know, we can see all kinds of miracles, but the miracles are not what changes us. And I believe, as the days get darker, I believe that we're going to begin to see more and more miracles as God makes himself more and more real for those that need to have their attention grabbed and then the gospel being preached. But it's knowing Jesus Christ personally and intimately is what changes us. Having a personal relationship with him, speaking to him and him speaking to us, that's what changes us. And the amazing thing is, you know, so much in our lives how we feel about God and I know the world, people that don't know him, especially how they were raised with their father.
[00:38:28] If their dad was an abusive father, if he was a neglectful father, if he was a father who just wasn't ever there, just never had a father. They don't know how to relate to a father. They don't know what to expect from a father. The abusive father, we tend to think that God is abusive, that he's hard and he's a want to jump on us, but that's not who God is. The amazing thing is how Jesus says to the people here, he says, come to me, all of you who carry burdens, and I will give you rest. That's what we all want. We want that rest.
[00:39:02] You know, he says, let me teach you. It's a process, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls. Rest on your innermost being. That's the kind of rest. When your neighbors and friends, they know you and they have relationship with you, they say, what's different about that person? They have that peace that passes understanding. They don't know what the peace that passes understanding is, but you have it. And it becomes very obvious when the pressures come up in the world. You have that peace that passes understanding. And like the apostle Paul said, in the midst of all of our pressures, God's grace is all we need.
[00:39:40] So I want to, you know, at this time, I would like to have our altar workers come forward in a minute. I also want to have open up the altar here for you. Like, I wanted to bump it to the end of the service and say, you know, whatever your need might be, you may be in need healing, maybe you need encouragement, maybe you need comforting, you know, whatever your needs are at, you know, we want to pray for you as a church, and maybe you don't know how to have a relationship with Jesus. Maybe you've known about Jesus, but you've never heard him speak to you. I want to encourage you to come forward when everybody comes forward, you know, as people come forward, and I want to encourage you to come forward for the sake of the others coming forward so that nobody knows why anybody's coming forward, but they're coming forward to be encouraged to be prayed for. And so at this time, I'd like to have a few people come forward as altar workers in here and would be good. Everybody come forward. Everybody that wants to be encouraged. If you're going through a season of wilderness, let us encourage you through prayer, even if you've never worked to praying for people. Come forward to pray for people. If that's what you're feeling. The spirit is tugging you. You want to do that. Come forward and pray for people. Come forward for prayer. Don't be shy. Let's stand.
[00:41:03] Father, we thank you, Lord God, for the power of your holy spirit. I thank you, Lord God, that you're in this place. I thank you, Lord, that you have been speaking to all of us. There's not one person in this congregation that you haven't touched, Father God, by the power of your spirit. And, Lord, I just pray that you would give us the courage, Father, to step forward, regardless of what we feel, what we think, whatever it is that would be stopping us. Lord, I just pray that you would help us to respond to you. And Lord God, if it's staying in the pew and praying right there, Father God bless them. Pour out your spirit. Walk through this congregation, Holy Spirit, and minister to your people in the areas of need that are there, because we all have them.
[00:41:48] And so, Father, we thank you for who you are. And just pray, Lord God, that as any. Come forward, Lord, that you would just meet them and bless them and pour out your spirit in them, fill them and baptize them with your holy spirit. I pray in Jesus name. Amen. Amen.
[00:42:05] Come forward. I know you guys, you know, like, our congregation is going through quite a season, and so if you do, we will pray for you.
[00:42:17] Amen. You're dismissed.
