“Then the Lord said to me, ‘You have been traveling around this mountain country long enough. Turn northward…'” Deuteronomy 2:2-3
In the Christian’s realm of thinking, the statement, “Coming out of the wilderness,” refers to one who has been through a tough season of faith but now they are emerging better for what God has walked them through.
Questions:
- Have you any experience with times of being in a spiritual wilderness?
- Are you presently in a wilderness time?
- What have you learned in the wilderness?
These were questions I would have loved to have been able to ask the people of Israel as they heard God’s Word in Deuteronomy 2.
Let’s look at the content of the chapter together:
In this chapter we see both death and deliverance:
- All the men of war (who had rebelled in the wilderness) died in the wilderness.
- In God’s grace He walked with the people during these days, 2:7
- In God’s judgment He dealt with the rebellion in men’s hearts, 2:14-16
The judgment did have an ending date!!!
- A new generation was about to be delivered from the wilderness.
- They had traveled around the mountain long enough, Vs: 3
- This would be the day when God would put fear in the hearts of all their enemies,Vs: 25
- The Lord God gave the enemy into their hands, Vs: 36
Think it through:
Here were a people listening to their past and learning about their present!!!!
Question: “What has the past taught you?”
In the wilderness of life we are born. We are spiritually in the darkness, living without hope, and without direction. It is God who entered into our wilderness to show us the light, John 8:11-12. It is God who entered into the wilderness to purchase our pardon for wilderness ways, John 3:16. It is God who leads us out of the wilderness, I Peter 3:9-10.
It is to the Promised Land that former wilderness people are traveling.
Certainly there will be seasons when God will have to take us to wilderness days. These are not days of being in the darkness, but these are days in which the Lord is sanctifying us!!!
It is my prayer that you will embrace the wilderness and you will emerge from the wilderness closer to God and clear as to the journey ahead.