My Wilderness Has A Purpose

From our Bible study series in the book of Hosea, the image of a wilderness plays a major role in the message sent by God through Hosea to Isreal.

Hosea, Joel (Excursus: The Ideal of the Wilderness)

Yahweh threatens to turn Israel into a wilderness (Hos 2:3) but then promises to allure Israel into the wilderness and there win her love (2:14).

Hosea 2:3 ESV

lest I strip her naked and make her as in the day she was born, and make her like a wilderness, and make her like a parched land, and kill her with thirst.

Hosea 2:14 ESV

“Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak tenderly to her.

In this, the text of Hosea draws together two theological concepts that are founded on the idea of wilderness.

Hosea, Joel Excursus: The Ideal of the Wilderness

Ancient Israel sat precariously at the edge of a great desert, and this neighboring, hostile world so impressed itself on the minds of the inhabitants that the prophets and other biblical writers repeatedly returned to the ideal of wilderness in order to present the great themes of the Bible.

Hosea, Joel Excursus: The Ideal of the Wilderness

The basic and most obvious fact about the desert is that it is hostile to human and most other forms of life

Job speaks of the wilderness...

Job 38:26–27 ESV

to bring rain on a land where no man is, on the desert in which there is no man, to satisfy the waste and desolate land, and to make the ground sprout with grass?

Hosea, Joel Excursus: The Ideal of the Wilderness

For this reason the desert could toughen a person while at the same time making him to be an outcast.

Hosea, Joel Excursus: The Ideal of the Wilderness

For the average person wilderness was something to avoid.

Hosea, Joel (Excursus: The Ideal of the Wilderness)

The Israelites of the exodus complained that they would have preferred to have died in Egypt than to suffer in the wilderness (Exod 14:12; see also Prov 21:19).

Exodus 14:12 ESV

Is not this what we said to you in Egypt: ‘Leave us alone that we may serve the Egyptians’? For it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness.”

The wilderness stands in contrast to the city, the place of human habitation.

Hosea, Joel Excursus: The Ideal of the Wilderness

For this reason the wilderness is the place of punishment, and the archetype for this ideal is the forty years of wandering Israel suffered as punishment for lack of obedience

Numbers 32:13 ESV

And the Lord’s anger was kindled against Israel, and he made them wander in the wilderness forty years, until all the generation that had done evil in the sight of the Lord was gone.

God is speaking against Egypt

Ezekiel 29:5 ESV

And I will cast you out into the wilderness, you and all the fish of your streams; you shall fall on the open field, and not be brought together or gathered. To the beasts of the earth and to the birds of the heavens I give you as food.

Hosea, Joel Excursus: The Ideal of the Wilderness

Frequently the prophets used the image of reversion to wilderness to describe God’s rejection of a city

Jeremiah 4:26 ESV

I looked, and behold, the fruitful land was a desert, and all its cities were laid in ruins before the Lord, before his fierce anger.

Hosea, Joel Excursus: The Ideal of the Wilderness

None of this implies that the Old Testament uniformly treats the wilderness as evil. One could more accurately say that it portrays the desert as harsh and dangerous.

Have you ever felt like you were in a dry place!

No growth

Isolated

No movement / No Progress

Dm’s is dry

Money in the bank but your life feels dry

Good job but I feel in despair

Ginger McPherson

A spiritual desert season is often called a crisis of faith or a dark night of the soul.

It’s a time of deep, painful spiritual questioning, a time when you feel like all the certainties and securities of life are being stripped away, and what is left is just not enough to keep you going.

Have you ever just felt empty....

Emotionally

Socially

Spiritually

My Wilderness Has A Purpose

God is trying to have an encounter with you!

Hosea 2:3 ESV

lest I strip her naked and make her as in the day she was born, and make her like a wilderness, and make her like a parched land, and kill her with thirst.

God will you a wilderness place to get our attention…

After the children of Isreal heard the report from the spies about the promise land…

This was their response and remember this is not the first time they responded this way!

Numbers 14:1–2 ESV

Then all the congregation raised a loud cry, and the people wept that night. And all the people of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron. The whole congregation said to them, “Would that we had died in the land of Egypt! Or would that we had died in this wilderness!

God spoke to Moses

Numbers 14:11 ESV

And the Lord said to Moses, “How long will this people despise me? And how long will they not believe in me, in spite of all the signs that I have done among them?

The wilderness will cause you to have a reality check!

God was going to wipe theme all out!

But Moses interceded for the people…

God said I will forgive them but…

God said that none of the men who have seen my glory and my signs that I did in Egypt and in the wilderness shall see the promise land.

Your little ones will see it

Numbers 14:32 ESV

But as for you, your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness.

Numbers 14:33 ESV

And your children shall be shepherds in the wilderness forty years and shall suffer for your faithlessness, until the last of your dead bodies lies in the wilderness.

Numbers 14:34 ESV

According to the number of the days in which you spied out the land, forty days, a year for each day, you shall bear your iniquity forty years, and you shall know my displeasure.’

The wilderness is a place for an attitude adjustment…

It can be a place for things to die!

Hosea, Joel Excursus: The Ideal of the Wilderness

The wilderness forces the individual to rely upon God, and the Bible often attributes survival in the wilderness to his grace.

But even though I may have a wilderness moment…

God still provides

Deuteronomy 29:5 ESV

I have led you forty years in the wilderness. Your clothes have not worn out on you, and your sandals have not worn off your feet.

Hosea 2:14 ESV

“Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak tenderly to her.

Hosea, Joel Excursus: The Ideal of the Wilderness

As a place of refuge it is also a place where one learns complete reliance on God. The wilderness is therefore also the place of testing, repentance, and spiritual growth. Deuteronomy 8:2 declares that God left Israel in the wilderness for forty years “in order to humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commandments.”

Deuteronomy 8:2 ESV

And you shall remember the whole way that the Lord your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, that he might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not.

The wilderness is a part of the conforming process....

Your dry place is the right place!

Hosea, Joel Excursus: The Ideal of the Wilderness

The wilderness is therefore a threat to life and is the opposite of the subdued land, the city. It can represent rejection by God, and the eternal peace of God will mean an end to wilderness. But it is also the place of abandoning the world, wealth, and pretense and of depending entirely upon God for life. It is thus the place of grace and the training ground of spirituality.