God's purpose in the wilderness

Amos 2:10 (NKJV)

10 Also it was I who brought you up from the land of Egypt, And led you forty years through the wilderness, To possess the land of the Amorite.

Three phases or periods with our walk with God.

Where God brings us out of egypt with a mighty hand

It is a place where we see the hand of God in our lives,

He brings us out of sin and immorality,

He enligtenes the understanding of our heart

We see God break our chains and addictions and set us free

A period of wilderness which we have to pass through

A time wherein we finally posses of what God has promised.

We eat and feed on God’s faithfullness

The promise of God becomes somethings that we see, touch and handle and experience in our lives.

Between the first and the last Phase there is this wilderness.

I wan’t to speak to you about This phase, what the purpose of God is in this phase.

Defination of the wilderness

Moses describes the wilderness thus:

Deuteronomy 8:14–16 (NKJV)

14 when your heart is lifted up, and you forget the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage;

15 who led you through that great and terrible wilderness, in which were fiery serpents and scorpions and thirsty land where there was no water; who brought water for you out of the flinty rock;

16 who fed you in the wilderness with manna, which your fathers did not know, that He might humble you and that He might test you, to do you good in the end—

The great and terrible wilderness is define by two things

the deadly animals namely, the fiery serpenst and scorpions

The thirsty land where there is no water

The thirsty land where there is no water

A place deviod of water, devoid of rain.

spiritually, a place where there is barely the presence of God’s spirit or any spiritual rain

A place where there seems to be no signs of spiritual life, no sign of any green tree or grass.

A place of fiery serpents and scorpions

Luke 10:19 “19 Behold, I give you the authority to trample on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means hurt you.”

The devil is described as scorpion and seprents, so its is a place of demons

Connection between a dry land and scorpions and serpents

Matth 12:43 “43 “When an unclean spirit goes out of a man, he goes through dry places, seeking rest, and finds none.”

3. A place of no activity or movement

It is not like a city bustling with activity,.

It is a place of no spiritual activity, it is silence,

In fact there is plenty of serpent and scorpion activity but no man activity.

There is plent of demonic activity but little to no spiritual activity or God activity.

The wilderness is not your destination but the path to your destination

The dilemas we face when we walk with God.

What God speaks to concerning us is not what we experience when we come to the wilderness.

God spoke to them through Moses about the land of milk and honey. How he will bring them of of Egypt to a land filled with milk and honey, Yet there was no mention of the wilderness.

Joseph Dream made no mention of salvery in Egypt.

Moses calling made no mention of being a shepherd for 40 years in the wilderness.

So when we follow our the promise Word of God and it brings us to wilderness and we experience this phase from year to year. We will develop the belief and feeling that this is our destination. So that what we came out from becomes very appealing to what we experience in the present

The wilderness is not your destination, not the destination of the church, it is the path to God’s promise

“And led you forty years through the wilderness, To possess the land of the Amorite.

The destination is possesing the promise the path to that destination is the wilderness.

If you believe that this wilderness phase is your destination, then you will perish there, or perish trying to return where you came from.

God’s purpose in the wilderness.

Deuteronomy 8:16 (NKJV)

16 who fed you in the wilderness with manna, which your fathers did not know, that He might humble you and that He might test you, to do you good in the end—

Humble you

Song of Solomon 8:5 (NKJV)

5 Who is this coming up from the wilderness, Leaning upon her beloved? I awakened you under the apple tree. There your mother brought you forth; There she who bore you brought you forth.

She did not go into the wilderness leaning on her beloved, but she is coming out of the wilderness leaning on her beloved.

Something has transpired in the wilderness that has caused her to lean no longer on herself but on her beloved.

God has broken her strength, and humbled her and now she only leans on her beloved.

The wilderness is a place where God breaks you and he breaks you power and your strength and humbles you

Moses as an example

40 years of obscurity, insignificance being just a shepherd who leads sheeps instead of people had broken him.

His stregth was brokne, he was old, his ambitions and self reliance and self confidence was broken,

He wen’t into Egpyt leaning on God, being confident in the word that God has spoken to him that i am with you.

Joseph as an example,

God has realy humbled him and broken him through slavery and the the dungeon.

God really brought him low and humbled him before he elevated him and brough him to the spotlight.

Genesis 41:15–16 (NKJV)

15 And Pharaoh said to Joseph, “I have had a dream, and there is no one who can interpret it. But I have heard it said of you that you can understand a dream, to interpret it.”

16 So Joseph answered Pharaoh, saying, “It is not in me; God will give Pharaoh an answer of peace.”

The church as an example,

God will make Zion a praise in the earth.

First she has to be despised, rejected in the earth. She has to be humbled in the wilderness so she can learn to lean on me.

Though they say of her “this is zion whom no man seeks after”, she will be called “Zion, the city sought out”

To Test you

Deuteronomy 8:2 (NKJV)

2 And you shall remember that the Lord your God led you all the way these forty years in the wilderness, to humble you and test you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not.

God tested David in the wilderness

God tested Joseph in the wilderness

God tested his people in the wilderness.

How important is his word to you, compared to comfor

what is the true desire and intent of your heart.

How far are you willing to god to keep the commandments of God.

The wilderness is a place of learning

It is a place where God teaches his people

Deuteronomy 32:9–10 (NKJV)

9 For the Lord’s portion is His people; Jacob is the place of His inheritance.

10 “He found him in a desert land And in the wasteland, a howling wilderness; He encircled him, He instructed him, He kept him as the apple of His eye.

It is in the wilderness the people received the statutes, judgments, laws and testimonies of God

It is in the wilderness the people learn of God’s ways and his law.

The wilderness is a place where there is not activity because it is a time of learning.

It is period in our live and the life of the church where we spend much time listening to God and learning his ways.

Moses repeats 10 times in deutronomy “lest you forget or do not forget”, all the covenants and the laws which God has speoken to you. This was just before they entered the promise land.

The wilderness is a place where we seek God (pray)

Luke 5:15–16 (NKJV)

15 However, the report went around concerning Him all the more; and great multitudes came together to hear, and to be healed by Him of their infirmities.

16 So He Himself often withdrew into the wilderness and prayed.

Psalm 63:1 (NKJV)

1 O God, You are my God; Early will I seek You; My soul thirsts for You; My flesh longs for You In a dry and thirsty land Where there is no water.

This was David’s psalm in the wilderness of Judah

The wilderness is a place where we seek God out fervently

The wilderness is a period in our lifes where we spend a lot of time in just prayer.

The prayers we pray in the wilderness will have huge impact later on when God begins to act and fullfill his promise

God will choose to use and be an instrument of his purpose those who have spend that period seeeking him.

In that period they will speak and he will listen.

Joshua as an example,

Exodus 33:7–11 NKJV

7 Moses took his tent and pitched it outside the camp, far from the camp, and called it the tabernacle of meeting. And it came to pass that everyone who sought the Lord went out to the tabernacle of meeting which was outside the camp. 8 So it was, whenever Moses went out to the tabernacle, that all the people rose, and each man stood at his tent door and watched Moses until he had gone into the tabernacle. 9 And it came to pass, when Moses entered the tabernacle, that the pillar of cloud descended and stood at the door of the tabernacle, and the Lord talked with Moses. 10 All the people saw the pillar of cloud standing at the tabernacle door, and all the people rose and worshiped, each man in his tent door. 11 So the Lord spoke to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend. And he would return to the camp, but his servant Joshua the son of Nun, a young man, did not depart from the tabernacle.

Context, this is just after the people had sinned with the calf idol, and God commanded them to remove their ornaments?jewelery.

Joshua, before God has placed his eye on him that he would Moses successor, was spending his time in the tent in prayer even when Moses had finished. (this is just after they left Egypt, so 40 before Moses died and Joshua took over)

He was more fervent in seeking God than anyone else in the camp.

The effect of this persistant prayer and seeking God in the wilderness brought about an incredible miracle where God listened to man for the first time

Joshua 10:12–14 (NKJV)

12 Then Joshua spoke to the Lord in the day when the Lord delivered up the Amorites before the children of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel: “Sun, stand still over Gibeon; And Moon, in the Valley of Aijalon.”

13 So the sun stood still, And the moon stopped, Till the people had revenge Upon their enemies. Is this not written in the Book of Jasher? So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and did not hasten to go down for about a whole day.

14 And there has been no day like that, before it or after it, that the Lord heeded the voice of a man; for the Lord fought for Israel.

Why did God respect the voice of Joshua and obey him.

Those years where he spent alone time in the tent seeking his face.

Hebrews 11:6 “6 But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.”

Optional Example of Daniel

The man who persistantly sought God from his youth in the wilderness of Babylon. He did not even allow the penalty of death to stop his daily commitment to seek the Lord.

In his old Age, Angels visited him, and revealed to him the destiny of his people, and the revelation of the end of all things.

What was never revealed to others before him was revealed to him.

Don’t waste this opportune time to seek the Lord