What does it mean to have a wilderness experience?

The question now arises as to experience in this place, and how far it applies to Canaan as well as the wilderness - Romans 7 or Egyptian experience - from Rameses to deliverance or even to Sinai, does not come in here - it is in a good measure sifted. The character of wilderness experience is not that. It is Deuteronomy 8, God is with us, amongst us, and we pilgrims even if we forget it. It is the way, God who has delivered testing us; and a deal there is to learn, not now as to judicial standing, but state, and state in it having to say to God - in His presence, He in us by His Spirit - that He may know what is in our hearts (not we what is in His heart, though we know it far better by it, far better) humbling us, proving us; though at the end He has not seen iniquity in Jacob, nor beheld perverseness in Israel, and it will still be said as to Israel at that time: "What has God wrought!" But Israel had been fully tried; it was not uncertainty and distrust, when they had, seemingly as called, to find their way to deliverance, but when delivered their state of soul tested - and written for our admonition, on whom the ends of the world are come. Of this, Numbers being the account of it, and Deuteronomy partly the commentary, we have spoken as being the ways, not the purpose of God, an important principle, which Romans 8, Colossians 1, and the thief on the cross teach us clearly.

From this point in Romans 5, we progress in the knowledge of Himself. Verses 3 to 5 give us, in a sense, experience in circumstances of trial and contrariety — in other words, wilderness experience. What marks a wilderness is barrenness, no sustenance. In the spiritual counterpart of this the believer learns that there is no support for him in the world through which he passes. Yet, in the good of verses 1 and 2, he says, "and not only so, but we glory in tribulations also."

But again is that all? does that sum up the whole of the believer's life? Surely not. Our feet are here upon the desert sands, we meet with manifold temptations. What are we to do in this hostile world? We are occupied as to our souls with the infinite fulness of Christ. We enjoy all the precious things that are unfolded to us as to Him, but what about our daily life? what about our testimony in a world like this? What about that development of character that comes from exercise? I will quote again from that same chapter in Romans: "Not only so, but we glory in tribulation also, knowing that tribulation worketh patience, and patience experience, and experience hope, and hope maketh not ashamed, because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, which is given unto us." Where are we with experiences like that? Not in Leviticus, but we have passed into Numbers. I have enjoyed my access in Leviticus, and now I can glory in the very tribulation, that I have to pass through in this world. Now that is exactly what is unfolded to us in the book of Numbers; it is the testing, the trial, and alas, when you try the flesh, its weakness, its failure, its feebleness, its dishonoring God are brought out on the one hand. But is that all? Thank God there is also brought out the infinite patience, the long-suffering and wisdom of our God, and if in this wilderness experience on the one hand I learn what I am, on the other hand I learn God as I could not learn Him, I say it reverently, even in the glory up there. I learn Him here as the One who upholds me, and sustains me in the midst of the sorest trials; who, when I have tripped and fallen, or grown cold and careless, can restore me, can bring me back, can bring me through, and bring me to the end of it all; and I could not learn that in heaven; and that, dear brethren, is what we have brought out in the book of Numbers.

We next notice that the manna ceased, and "the people did eat of the old corn in the land." (Chap. 5:11-12.) This is very significant. In days of wilderness experience, the people were fed by that which came down from heaven; but when in the land they fed and lived upon that which sprung up from the corn of wheat that died. So now those who may be trusting in the blood of the Lamb, who have merely a wilderness experience, will be sustained by the limited, though most blessed, thought of Christ having descended; but those who know their full deliverance from death, and standing in life and righteousness in heavenly places in Christ, find their joy and strength in the blessed knowledge, that "He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens, that He might fill all things." They live on resurrection food, on Christ risen, Christ exalted, Christ the abolisher of death, Christ crowned with glory and honour, Christ our Lamb and Priest now in the presence of God for us, Christ our Lord, Head, righteousness, and life, Christ soon coming to take us unto Himself, that where He is, there we may be also.

You cannot cross Jordan without finding the Canaanite and the Perizzite in the land. There are the trials and perils of the wilderness, which test our hearts, - all know more or less of the weary way testing our hearts and discovering what is in them, but wilderness experience is not the same as conflict in the land. When Joshua got into the place of the privileges of the people of God, he was in the place of conflict. God has set Christ as a Man in the glory, because He (as a Man) has perfectly glorified God as to sin. Christ has not only died for our sins, but we have died with Him, (dead with Christ is what Jordan is,) and we are raised up and made to sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus; thus associated, dead and risen, with Him, we are brought into the place where all the conflict is. It is most valuable and precious to get distinctly hold of this; many a Christian has not realized it; there is many a one still in Egypt, holding the value of the blood on the door-posts, but knowing nothing of the deliverance accomplished at the Red Sea. Israel had to stand still and see the salvation of God; this answers to the death and resurrection of Christ. I am out of Egypt: the judgment which fell on the Egyptians has saved me. God has raised up Christ and given Him glory, that our faith and hope might be in God. Just as every poor sinner has been driven out of the earthly paradise because sin is complete in the first Adam, so am I taken out of this world into the heavenly paradise in the Second Adam because righteousness is complete. God raising up Christ and giving Him glory proves that the question of sin has been all settled in Christ on the cross, and in virtue of this, He is sitting where He is, at the right hand of God. The passage through the wilderness is to humble and prove us; our perseverance is tested by God, leading us through the path in which Christ was found implicitly faithful. Israel went through that great and terrible wilderness where were the fiery serpents and scorpions and drought, where there was no water. God brought them water out of the rock of flint, fed them with the manna to humble them and prove them, to do them good at their latter end. They came to Jordan, they pass it, they get into the land, they eat the old corn, and the land is theirs.

We must all learn death (being redeemed we have life) and it cannot be learnt in Egypt. They had no Marah in Egypt. It is wilderness experience. Redemption must be known first, and the effect will be death to sin, to selfishness, to one's own will; and all this is very trying. A person might be tempted to say, All this trial comes upon me because I have not redemption. Not so; it is just because you are redeemed. We may seek to avoid the bitter waters of Marah, but God will bring us to them. He must break down all that is of the old man, and then, in His own good time, He will put in that which sweetens all. But because God has brought me to Himself, He is putting His finger on everything (be it love of the world, setting up self, my own will, or whatever it may be) that hinders complete dependence on Him, or my soul's full enjoyment of Himself. But count it not strange, though it be a fiery trial which is to try you; for as surely as you are redeemed, so will He break down your own will. Yes, beloved, God will make you drink of the very thing (death) that redeemed you.

The wilderness experience too involved the caring, disciplining hand of God, for as the eagle stirs up its nest, hovering over its young, taking them on its wings, so the Lord dealt with Israel (vs.11-12). The eagle will not allow its young to remain idle for long in the nest, but will stir them up, pushing them out of the nest high on a mountainside, to teach them to fly. If they cannot fly at first, but begin dropping, the great eagle will fly quickly underneath them to catch them on its wings. Therefore the wilderness experience was necessary training for Israel, just as believers today need training too.

38 This is only the entrance into the wilderness. He does not bring us into the desert till we are out of Egypt; until Christ has met God for us, we are not brought into the desert at all. We have trials and exercises there, but it is redemption that brings us into it; our path flows from that. In telling of redemption in Egypt, there is not a word about the wilderness; but when the Israelites have gone through it, then, in Deuteronomy 8, the wilderness is reviewed. He talks of the forty years there. "And thou shalt remember all the way which Jehovah thy God led thee these forty years in the wilderness, to humble thee, and to prove thee, to know what was in thine heart, whether thou wouldest keep his commandments or no," Deut. 8:2. There we find all these ways of God proving the heart, yet He was watching their clothes and their feet all the time. He adds another thing - "to do thee good at thy latter end." Redemption was at the beginning, Canaan at the latter end; the wilderness comes between the two. Through the wilderness we have God with us, and for us, not imputing anything to us, but exercising our hearts. These are the ways of God, the government of God, and so on.

First, as to the knowledge of self, we read, “Thou shalt remember all the way which the Lord thy God led thee these forty years in the wilderness, to humble thee and to prove thee, to know what was in thine heart.” Here is a wondrous point of knowledge. Who can say it? Who can penetrate the depths of a human heart? Who can tell its windings and labyrinths? The details of a wilderness life tend to bring out much of the evil that is in us. At the beginning of our Christian career, we are apt to be so occupied with the present joy of deliverance that we know very little of the real character of nature. It is as we get on, from stage to stage of our desert course, that we become acquainted with self.

The object of all the trial and testing of the wilderness was, as Deut. 8:2 tells us, "to humble thee, and to prove thee, to know what was in thine heart, whether thou wouldest keep His commandments, or no." God leads us by a trying and rugged path (Hermon means "rugged") that the naughtiness and pride of our hearts may be discovered. God loves us too well to allow us to be deceived as to our true character as in the flesh. He puts us in the very circumstances that bring it out. Not one of us can escape this testing and sifting. And as our true character is thus brought to light, we fret and chafe and murmur. How inexpressibly vexatious it is to always have something turning up that gives occasion to our hearts to show what is in them. If we only had a path in which we could always acquit ourselves creditably, how different it would be. If things would only go as we should like, how well and happily should we get on. Yes, and how supremely self-satisfied we should become. But God will find us out; and so He causes us to traverse this land of the Hermonites, until our hearts in their bitterness say, "Why does God put me into such circumstances as these? Why does He not make it easier for me? Why does something always occur to overturn my efforts to be good, and to make fruitless all my desires to be holy? If God would order things differently for me, my life would not be the contemptible failure that it now is." Has your heart never uttered such language as this? Do you know what it means? Why, it is casting the blame of your sin upon God; and this is the outcome of Satanic enmity - it is the bite of the serpent. In a thousand ways you have proved the goodness and mercy of God, and yet your heart is capable of turning round upon Him and suggesting that His ordering for you is to blame for all your failure. What a discovery this is of those hidden springs of enmity against God that rise in the carnal mind.