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Coming out of the Wilderness in Power
Carter Conlon
Part 1 (of 2)
The term “wilderness experience” rarely, if ever, means a time or place of leisure. A wilderness certainly is no oasis. In fact, by definition it is a remote environment devoid of all outward appeal, hope or comfort. It is a hostile place where few would willingly go. Most of us actually would resist going into a wilderness, yet that is exactly where God sent His Son.
GOD LEADS HIS SON INTO THE WILDERNESS
Before Jesus began His public ministry, John baptized Him in the Jordan River. As He came up out of the water, the voice of God spoke audibly from heaven saying, “Thou art my beloved Son; in thee I am well pleased” (Luke 3:22). Simultaneously, the Holy Spirit descended upon Him in the form of a dove, empowering Him for service. You might assume that Jesus would immediately go into public ministry, but this was not the case. “Jesus being full of the Holy Ghost returned from Jordan, and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness” (Luke 4:1).
Jesus embraced this barren setting as a positive rather than a negative experience for Him. We need to look closely at the truth of His example, and consider whether we too will allow God to use our time spent in the wilderness as a means of knowing Him in a greater measure.
JESUS CONTINUALLY RETURNS TO THE WILDERNESS
“Now when the sun was setting, all they that had any sick with divers diseases brought them unto him; and he laid his hands on every one of them, and healed them. And devils also came out of many, crying out, and saying, Thou art Christ the Son of God. And he rebuking them suffered them not to speak: for they knew that he was Christ. And when it was day, he departed and went into a desert place” (Luke 4:40–42).
Jesus voluntarily returned again and again to the wilderness after healing the multitudes and bringing deliverance to the oppressed. “But so much the more went there a fame abroad of him: and great multitudes came together to hear, and to be healed by him of their infirmities. And he withdrew himself into the wilderness, and prayed”
(Luke 5:15–16).
When Jesus’ fame spread abroad, He again headed for the sanctity of the wilderness. He understood the need to establish God as His sole source of strength. This would continually give God all the glory and honor. Many of us do not want to embrace what Jesus is clearly showing us – that the wilderness is not to be avoided, but rather should be accepted and understood. As a believer, ask yourself the question: Why did Jesus keep going back to such a harsh and uninviting place? Could it be that God was revealing something of His strength there? Was Jesus receiving a hidden treasure from God which the natural mind could not comprehend?
I believe God wants to bring you to a place where you begin to understand why you go through hard times. In the Bible, there are many examples that illustrate what God can accomplish in the wilderness.
GOD LEADS HIS PEOPLE INTO THE WILDERNESS
When Israel was held captive in Egypt, God said to Moses, “Go to Pharaoh and say, ‘Let my people go three days’ journey into the wilderness’” (Exodus 3:18). Three days into the bone-dry countryside was far enough for them to be out of reach from everything which bound them or offered creature comforts. Little did they know that it would become a place of incredible worship and provision for them. Here they would witness God’s might as He fought for them and gave them a great deliverance.
Pharaoh, who represents natural man, only saw a weak, beggarly people trapped in the desert, confused and directionless. He said to his commanders, “Gather together the chariots and the weapons because we are going after them. They are entangled in the land, the wilderness has shut them in” (Exodus 14:3). Pharaoh wrongly interpreted what God was doing with His chosen people. He could not see God in the wilderness. In the end he and his immense host of horsemen were defeated in the Red Sea – and the Israelites triumphed!
If you look only with your natural vision, the wilderness can seem an unlikely place to find God. And if you choose to avoid the wilderness, you will never know the supernatural pathways revealed there.
GOD DEALS WITH SIN IN THE WILDERNESS
In the wilderness God gave His people the assurance their sins were forgiven. In the Old Testament on the Day of Atonement, the priest killed a goat as a sin offering and sprinkled its blood upon the Ark of the Covenant. The priest took a second goat, called the scapegoat, placed his hands upon its head and confessed the sins of the Israelites. A strong man was then selected to take the scapegoat, which now bore the sins of the people, and release it into a desolate area (Leviticus 16:15–22). In this desert place God dealt with the sins of the people. In the same way, God uses your wilderness experience to go after hidden or unacknowledged sins. In His mercy, He takes you there not to harm you, but to deliver you.
GOD REVEALS HIS PROVISION IN THE WILDERNESS
In the wilderness, God displayed His awesome power to provide for His people. “And when the children of Israel saw it, they said one to another, It is manna: for they wist not what it was. And Moses said unto them, This is the bread which the Lord hath given you to eat” (Exodus 16:15). Manna appeared in a place with no delis, grocery stores, fast-food joints or restaurants. The people had to depend on God for their daily sustenance.
If ever you needed to lay hold of the truth that God provides for your every need, it is now! The Lord has promised to care for you, so allow Him to take you to a place where your only resource is Him. Remember, Jesus fed the multitudes on a hillside in a desolate area – and He will do the same for you.
GOD TRAINS DAVID FOR BATTLE IN THE WILDERNESS
David, the youngest son of Jesse, was given the task of tending the family’s sheep. While David watched the flocks grazing in the wilderness, God taught him to trust Him. When the sheep were attacked by a bear and a lion, God enabled David to deliver the lambs out of the mouths of the beasts.
Later, when David visited his brothers on the battlefield, he could not understand why they were letting an evil giant named Goliath belittle the armies of the living God. His brothers prided themselves on being men of stature with all the right training and experience, while David was looked down upon as a common herder. His brothers accused him of weakness, because he was not formally trained in the art of warfare as they were (1 Samuel 17:28). In essence, his older brother said, “You don’t have the armor we possess and you have not had the training we completed. All you have been doing is caring for animals in the wilderness.” They could not comprehend that God was in the wilderness with David. They could not understand that in the wilderness, David found his strength and confidence in God.
David picked up five stones and, with God as his source of strength, confronted and killed Goliath as his brothers looked on. To their amazement, they saw God use a common herder to defeat an enemy which had terrorized the entire army of Israel. You may not understand it now, but what God is teaching you in the wilderness will enable you to bring down your giants in the future.
GOD RAISES MIGHTY WARRIORS IN THE WILDERNESS
King Saul’s jealousy drove David into the wilderness, but there God raised up a small army of discarded men who were in debt, in distress, and discontented. Under David’s leadership, God made these men into mighty warriors and what could have been a wasted time of frustration in his young life turned into triumph. God used David’s time in the wilderness to produce steel in the lives of men who otherwise would have been powerless.
As you read this message, try to grasp the full significance of every difficulty God allows in your life. Through them He will shape you into a mighty man or woman who knows how to trust Him in the dark days ahead. You are being made into a warrior for His kingdom. Your struggles are not wasted with God. In time, you will look back and know that without the wilderness experiences in your life, you could never have accomplished what He designed for you.
GOD USES THE WILDERNESS TO WIN BACK THE BACKSLIDER
In Hosea we see the pattern of how God deals with people when they have strayed from the truth and from His purposes.
“For their mother hath played the harlot: she that conceived them hath done shamefully: for she said, I will go after my lovers, that give me my bread and my water, my wool and my flax, mine oil and my drink. Therefore, behold, I will hedge up thy way with thorns, and make a wall, that she shall not find her paths. And she shall follow after her lovers, but she shall not overtake them; and she shall seek them, but shall not find them: then shall she say, I will go and return to my first husband; for then was it better with me than now. For she did not know that I gave her corn, and wine, and oil, and multiplied her silver and gold, which they prepared for Baal” (Hosea 2:5–8).
The wife referred to in this passage of Scripture was diverted from her true source of provision and sought help elsewhere. Instead of seeking God, she had focused all her attention on this world – and that is Baal worship. God wants you to trust Him alone for all your needs and not seek answers in the powers and institutions of this day and age. There will be no lasting peace or joy if you trust in those systems and not in the Lord your God.
GOD USES THE WILDERNESS TO BREAK STRONGHOLDS
“Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak comfortably unto her. And I will give her her vineyards from thence, and the valley of Achor for a door of hope: and she shall sing there, as in the days of her youth, and as in the day when she came up out of the land of Egypt. And it shall be at that day, saith the Lord, that thou shalt call me Ishi; and shalt call me no more Baali” (Hosea 2:14–16).
God is saying, “I am going to bring my bride into the wilderness and speak to her there. I will take her far away from the clamor and noise of the things which distracted her. There in the wilderness I will talk to her tenderly and give her vineyards in the Valley of Achor.”
The Valley of Achor was where Achan, a covetous man, was judged soon after Israel entered into Canaan. After the victory of Jericho, Achan
was so overcome by the love of gold, silver, brass and clothing that he stole these things and hid them under his tent. His greed brought weakness into the entire camp of Israel and God’s people were defeated by an insignificant army. Achan and all that pertained to him were removed from the camp and he was put to death.
Achan is a type of captivating sin that can lead you astray from the purposes of God. However, God in His mercy will take you to a wilderness where the strongholds that have captivated your heart are dealt with. In your wilderness, He will say, “These things have gripped you for far too long and by the power of the Holy Spirit, I will set you free.”
God does not lead you into the wilderness to harm you. He leads you there to completely depend on Him. The dry places will bring you into a deeper intimacy with Him and you will no longer view Him as being far away. You will come to know Him in closeness and confidence. Your relationship will be a different, more intimate one, and you will call Him husband instead of master.
Through the hard times He will strengthen you by removing those areas which produce weakness. His desire is for the power of the Holy Spirit to flow through your life and the life of the church. God does this so His glory can be made known to the world. God knows that in the wilderness you will turn to Him, know His heart, and walk with Him as the bride of Christ.
GOD WILL OPEN THE WORD TO YOU IN THE WILDERNESS
The Bible says, “In those days came John the Baptist, preaching in the wilderness of Judaea” (Matthew 3:1). In the wilderness John was schooled by the Lord and the Word of God came into his heart. By the time he came out of the desert, he was anointed and empowered by God. Through the powerful preaching of this man, God was able to confront an entire backslidden, religious system, because John had heard the Word of God in the wilderness.
In Psalm 74:14, the Scripture tells us that the spoils of victory (the crushing of the head of Leviathan) will be given as meat to the people inhabiting the wilderness. In other words, the meat or food that will sustain you will be the knowledge and revelation that Satan is a defeated foe. His head was crushed when Christ defeated him on Calvary. And the Word of God says that the triumph of that victory will be given to those who have been drawn by God into the wilderness. It is a wisdom which will be revealed to those who do not shun the difficult places but embrace them.
GOD WILL HAVE A BRIDE COMING OUT OF THE WILDERNESS
You and I are about to meet in the wilderness. We are about to meet with Christ there. Very soon the whole church is going into the wilderness; however, the true church will not stay there but will come out in the strength of God. Solomon saw this truth when he wrote, “Who is this that cometh up from the wilderness, leaning upon her beloved?” (Song of Solomon 8:5). It will be a bride made up of people like you and me who have learned to lean on Christ for everything. This will be a testimony to all! There is a bride in this generation who will come out of the wilderness leaning upon her Beloved. Hallelujah!
Coming out of the Wilderness in Power
Carter Conlon
Part 2 (of 2)
In part one of Coming Out of the Wilderness with Power, we focused on the fact that God draws those He loves into the wilderness. We learned that the term “wilderness experience” does not mean an oasis or a place of leisure. Rather, by definition it is a remote environment devoid of all outward appeal, hope or comfort; a hostile place where few would willingly go. Most of us actually would resist going into a wilderness, yet that is exactly where God sent His Son.
In part two we want to focus on the actual “wilderness experience” of Jesus. We will see how He handled the temptations that came to Him in this inhospitable place and how His answers can instruct us. Remember, if you are a child of God, He will lead you into the wilderness from time to time in order to speak into your life. He does this so that an ever-increasing measure of His life will be revealed in you.
JESUS IS DIVINELY LED INTO THE WILDERNESS
“Jesus being full of the Holy Ghost returned from Jordan, and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness” (Luke 4:1). As we look at the life and ministry of Jesus, we first observe how He was baptized by John in the Jordan River and empowered by God. The Holy Spirit immediately led Him into the wilderness, a dry and barren place, where He was tempted by the devil. Here in this testing ground, the Father established that He must be the Son’s only source of strength and victory over Satan. Jesus demonstrated for us that victory over the enemy will only be won by complete dependence on God and His Word.
Nobody wants to go into the wilderness to face the battles of loneliness, hunger, and temptations from the devil. But, beloved, it is in these desert places that God works His will and purposes in your life. Here He exposes obstinate sin which has refused to go, it has been covered over and never dealt with. But it is also where He delivers you and raises you up to be a mighty warrior for His kingdom. He will open His Word to you and give you life and a song in your heart in this wilderness. It is strange but true that in these tough places you receive divine strength and encouragement from God. As you allow the Lord to take you on this journey, life may not suddenly become any easier, but your perspective of the “wilderness experience” will be changed. You will embrace God’s plan as the only plan for your life. You and I will be like the Shulamite, of whom Solomon wrote about, “Who is this that cometh up from the wilderness, leaning upon her beloved?” (Song of Solomon 8:5).
God’s ultimate goal is to have you come out of the wilderness with power, but be assured Satan will do everything possible to divert your focus from God and put it on your problems. As you encounter spiritual battles, one of your greatest temptations will be to trust in yourself and your own resources. This has been the devil’s strategy since the Garden of Eden. A closer look at the temptations of Jesus will show you how God intends to bring deliverance into your life.
THE TEMPTATION OF COMMANDING
The Scriptures tell us Jesus was hungry after forty days of fasting and right at that point the devil came to Him with the first great temptation, saying, “If thou be the Son of God, command this stone that it be made bread” (Luke 4:3). The devil craftily tried to provoke Jesus into supplying His own need rather than depending on His Father. In essence, Satan said to Him, “If you are truly the Son of God, then why are you hungry? Why are you suffering? Why are you struggling in this place? Why don’t you simply use the power of your words to command a better life for yourself? All you have to do is command the hard places to go away to make your life easier.”
If Jesus had yielded to this temptation to make a decision apart from God, He would never have been able to lay down His life for the sins of the world. He was committed to following His Father in everything, as the Scriptures declare in John 5:30, “…I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me.”
Jesus made a deliberate decision to rely on the Word in answering the devil, “It is written, That man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God” (Luke 4:4). In other words, “Satan, I have not been sent into this world to look after myself or to command away my difficulties. I have been sent to redeem a people who have been lost to my Father. His heart passionately longs for them and there is only one way they can be brought home—I have chosen that way.”
The devil always offers a road of ease and selfishness. By choosing this path your heart will eventually harden. If you seek your own welfare, you will end up with no compassion for those who are lost and will ultimately push away and marginalize those who need God. He wants to set the prisoner free and He has chosen you to show others His delivering power. This is not a time to be “commanding stones into bread” but a time to be seeking first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. God has promised He will provide everything you will ever need. If you look at the life of Jesus, you see He always had enough food to eat, clothing to wear, and a place to sleep, even if it was out in the open. The Father made it all available to Him because He chose to place His total dependence on God. Therefore He was able to say, “My meat (food) is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work” (John 4:34).
THE TEMPTATION OF RULING
Satan was undaunted by Christ’s refusal to fall for his first temptation and tried another approach. “And the devil, taking him up into an high mountain, showed unto him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. And the devil said unto him, All this power will I give thee, and the glory of them: for that is delivered unto me; and to whomsoever I will I give it. If thou therefore wilt worship me, all shall be thine” (Luke 4:5–7). The devil was saying to Jesus, “If you give me your adoration, this whole world will be yours. You can rule over all the kingdoms of men immediately and not have to live as a servant under them. If the reason you have come to this world is about ruling and reigning, do it now!”
This is one of the most effective temptations of Satan. You can be sure that at the root of this appeal is the pride of life, that ever-longing quest to be recognized, appreciated and honored. This kind of temptation can only have power if you are afraid of rejection. It is always difficult for the human ego to give one’s life to serving people and then get pushed away, unappreciated. The devil was moving to shortcut the ways of God and offer ruling now rather than later. This temptation was so inviting because it offered an opportunity to gain human honor—instantaneously.
Jesus knew that the vast majority of people would ultimately refuse His message and turn away from Him. But He had embraced this direction from His Father and would not be deterred from it. Jesus understood that He would one day rule and reign with God and had no desire to undermine the perfect will of the Father. At the Last Supper, Jesus expressed the heart of a servant for this fallen world. Everybody who sat at the table with Him that night would fail Him and some would even betray Him. Still He bent and tenderly washed the feet that would run in every direction at the first sign of difficulty. Christ was saying to them, “I have made the choice to be given for you and I will go the distance, although many of you will not initially understand it.”
Jesus faced that old adversary, the devil that day in the wilderness and with the authority of God upon Him and said to him, “Get thee behind me, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve” (Luke 4:8).
THE TEMPTATION OF UNBELIEF
“And he brought him to Jerusalem, and set him on a pinnacle of the temple, and said unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down from hence: For it is written, He shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee: And in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone” (Luke 4:9–11).
Now Satan tried to position Christ at the top of the temple where He would have to believe the Father to protect Him physically or to draw back in unbelief. By this temptation, Satan thought he had put Jesus “in check” and could destroy Him. The temple was supposed to be a place where life came from, but it had become a house of greed and dead works. Satan had taken Jesus to the temple, where he knew men chose to serve a dead religion rather than the living God. Satan knows that one of the surest ways to cripple the church of Jesus Christ is to move them out of faith and into unbelief. For this reason the devil brought Jesus to the very heart of it all—the house of God! He knew the first generation of Israelites who came out of Egypt perished in the wilderness because of their hard hearts and unbelief. Jesus would have to believe God was able to keep Him on this journey to save fallen men or not. This is what Satan likes to do with people all the time, to get your back into a corner where there seems to be no alternatives. But beloved there is an alternative! It is called the Word of God. Hallelujah! The Bible declares Satan is a defeated foe and God has given us a great victory through His Son Jesus Christ.
GIVEN FOR LOST HUMANITY
Jesus knew where the power of God was and He was intent on being given for fallen humanity. He had rejected turning a stone to bread, ruling over the people now, and putting the Word of God to a foolish test. His mind was fixed on going to a cross and being poured out so that others might be grafted into the lineage of Almighty God. It was as if Satan came to Him and said, “Do you really believe this is where the power of God is? Do you really believe there is a purpose to being given for fallen humanity? Do you really believe that God will sustain you on this pathway that you seem so intent on following?” Jesus knew that being given for people is where the power of God is released; therefore, He was confident that God would sustain Him on this journey.
Jesus understood the nature of the temptation. He also knew that Satan wanted Him to have a margin of doubt on this road marked with suffering. Jesus knew He would die for the sins of the world and that God would raise Him up again on the third day. So He looked His enemy in the eye and answered him, “It is said, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God” (Luke 4:12).
FAITH THAT UNLOCKS EVERY DOOR
If you really believe that the power of God is found by giving yourself for other people, then every locked door will be opened to you by God. Everything unlocks and opens when you are willing to walk this way. That is why Jesus looked at the devil and said, “You will not put God to a foolish test. God cannot lie like man—He will do what He says. What is written in His Word is exactly what will happen.” God’s purposes are winning your neighbor, co-worker, family members and ordinary people found in the highways and the byways to His kingdom.
JESUS COMES OUT OF THE WILDERNESS
The devil left the scene that day knowing Jesus could not be moved away from the plans of His Father. Jesus then arose, walked out of the wilderness, and headed to the very people God had sent Him to: the fallen, the destitute, the sick and the broken.
When He arrived at the local synagogue, He openly declared His mission for everyone to hear: “…He went into the synagogue on the sabbath day…to read. And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Esaias. And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, to preach the acceptable year of the Lord. And he closed the book, and he gave it again to the minister, and sat down. And the eyes of all them that were in the synagogue were fastened on him. And he began to say unto them, This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears” (Luke 4:16–21).
In essence, Christ said, “I did not come for myself. And the Spirit of God is not upon me to make hard places easy and this life effortless. The word is not in my mouth to satisfy my own desires and rule as a king. No, I have come for something much higher than this. I have come to be given for others.”
Jesus left their presence in the synagogue that day, with the Scribes and Pharisees in a uproar, because His words went against their teaching. “And all they in the synagogue, when they heard these things, were filled with wrath, And rose up, and thrust him out of the city, and led him unto the brow of the hill whereon their city was built, that they might cast him down headlong. But he passing through the midst of them went his way” (Luke 4:28–30). Why do you think the crowd could not throw Him off the brow of the cliff? It is because Jesus had put His faith in His Father, to keep and protect Him. Jesus knew that the Word of God was more powerful than any temptation the devil could throw at Him. He stood on the Word as it is written, “For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways. They shall bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone” (Psalm 91:11–12).
SO SEND I YOU
The desert is a place of testing and proving, believing and accepting God’s plans for us. Out of that place comes power and purpose. Jesus paved the way by His own example of trusting in the Word of God and holding true to God’s calling. We have the ability to walk in this power. We are called to reach the lost and to serve a selfish and backward generation, not on our terms but on God’s. Not taking the easy way out, as Satan would try to tempt us to do.
Remember Jesus said, “…As my Father hath sent me, even so send I you” (John 20:21). As followers of Jesus Christ, we are not called to live for ourselves. We are called to follow His example of total abandonment to the will of God without regard to self. Every time we stray from this understanding, God in His mercy will take us into a dry and barren place, where in desperation we will say, “Oh, God, what are you trying to tell me?” In that place God will show us His mercy, goodness and power. We will come out changed, with a greater understanding of the Father and a heart for the lost and dying. Hold fast to the Word of God and He will bring you out of the desert place with power!
