THE WILDERNESS
[p. 325] THE WILDERNESS
JBS Our subject is the wilderness. Israel were redeemed out of Egypt, and you see from Exodus 15: 13 - 17 that the purpose of God was to bring them into Canaan. But the wilderness lay between. There was no way of getting into Canaan except through the wilderness, and typically this is true for us. There is no other way of touching heaven but by accepting death here, and that is accepting the wilderness. The interval between Egypt and Canaan is the test for every one of us. Happy the man who is in that interval according to God. I know nothing that is so little known as the true character of the wilderness, and its consequent experience. The one who truly understands the wilderness as God’s appointment is a happy man. He looks for nothing but death here. That is really accepting the wilderness. You get out of Egypt by the death of Christ, and you have to learn that there is nothing for you in this scene but the death of Christ. The test to us is to accept the wilderness as a scene of death with no resource for us but God.
Israel took thirty-nine years to learn it, and we may take as many, though you might be only an hour in it. The thief and Stephen were a very short time in it. I thank God for what He has shown me as to the real character of the wilderness. I have often shrunk from singing:
This world is a wilderness wide,
We have nothing to seek nor to choose;
We’ve no thought in the waste to abide,
We have nought to regret nor to lose.
But the more I see what God expects me to be in the space between Egypt and Canaan, the more solemn it is - blessed indeed, but solemn. All the troubles of [p. 326] my life, all the shakings and tumults, have occurred in that interval. Why? That I might learn complete dependence upon God.
Rem Israel was in the three places - Egypt, the wilderness and Canaan.
JBS Yes; J.N.D. has said that the wilderness was not part of God’s purpose but it was part of His ways. The wilderness is, as it were, a bridge between two ports. If the people of God would accept it instead of Egypt, and in the light of Canaan, it would be a blessed place, or rather experience (for it is an experience rather than a place) for them. You have life in Christ outside this world, and there is nothing here to minister to that life. Exodus 15: 16, 17 is the wilderness proper - what it is to God. The manna, the smitten rock, the intercession, the victory over Amalek, set forth in fulness God’s grace for you in the wilderness. But the first thing you find on entering the wilderness is Marah; that is death; you have to drink death. The waters of Marah were of the waters of the Red Sea. The death of Christ, which has delivered me from Egypt, is to be practically maintained if I am to be truly in the wilderness. If you have not learnt what it is to be clear of Egypt you cannot possibly have wilderness experience; you must start clear. Romans 6 and 7 give in a short compass what makes the wilderness for us. If I accept death I save myself many a sorrow, and I am sustained here by God. There is nothing here for me, but what comes from God.
Rem We get mercies here.
JBS But natural mercies do not belong to the wilderness. though we do get them here. In the wilderness I only get what God is the source of. We have to learn ourselves. Israel spent forty years in learning themselves, and they did not get free - did not really accept the wilderness till Numbers 21.
Ques. What do [p. 327] you mean?
JBS They were either going back in heart to Egypt or murmuring. The wilderness yields nothing to the flesh, and if you go back in heart you go back to Egypt. They had to learn themselves; hence the wilderness was to humble them and to prove them, to know what was in their heart, and to make them know “that man doth not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord doth man live” (Deuteronomy 8: 3). When the Lord was led into the wilderness, this is the first scripture He quotes in answer to the devil. He was the dependent Man. Though He had power and means to relieve Himself He would have nothing but God, and was in the wilderness perfectly dependent on Him. If you study His life you will find that He never did anything for Himself, He never altered a single circumstance in His own favour. “Foxes have holes ... but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head” (Matthew 8: 20). But He had joys which nothing could touch, and He could say, “That they might have my joy fulfilled in themselves” (John 17: 13). All His springs were in God. That was the way the Lord lived here as a Man, and that is manna.
How distressed Israel were when they got to Marah, and that is like ourselves. We are little prepared to find no green spot here; we are glad to be out of the place of judgment through the death and resurrection of Christ. That is the Red Sea. But we are little prepared to keep in touch with His death all the way through, and it is only in His death that we can be practically free from the man under judgment. To accept this is to accept the wilderness. The young man in 1 John 2: 15 has overcome the wicked one - Pharaoh; but still it is said to him, “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him”. You know you are clear of the judgment of death because you have appropriated Christ’s death for your salvation. Do you continue to appropriate it?
[p. 328] or are you gratifying yourself in the place where He died? In 1 Peter 4: 1 we read, “Arm yourselves likewise with the same mind: for he that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin”. That does not go as far as “dead to sin” in Romans 6. In 2 Corinthians 4: 10 we have “Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body”. If you are truly in the wilderness you do not allow a word or a thing of that for which Christ suffered. That was Paul’s experience.
Tell me, if you are living the life of a Man who is not here, what is the first impression you get?
Rem That Christ is not here.
JBS Exactly. You have the impression on your soul that He is not here, and that is the wilderness; for if He is not here there is nothing for you here, nothing here for the life you enjoy. If you are in your room enjoying the Lord outside of everything here, and come down to the most beautiful family circle, it will not help you.
Rem That is where the disappointment comes.
JBS You have to bring grace into the circumstance. It does not bring grace to you. Do you follow me?
Rem I think I follow you so far as that there is no resource for us here.
JBS The most favourable natural circumstances do not minister to you. It is a dry and barren land. I believe you get the truest picture of wilderness experience in Psalm 23. Where do you come from? From where there is nothing to minister to you; but you are with Him, and where does He lead you? He leads you in the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake. You have the sense of His resources, and not only that, but of His favour in the presence of your enemies.
Ques Do you say, Mr. Stoney, that there is nothing here to minister to the new man?
JBS [p. 329] If you know anything, tell me what it is. Show me anything here that could minister to the new man.
Rem I was thinking that all ministry to the new man must come from the new place.
JBS Quite so, but that place is not here.
Rem The Holy Spirit must minister it.
JBS Yes, but where from? He brings it down to you.
Rem The Lord in glory is the true spring.
JBS Quite so. Well, the first sense you have after having got deliverance is that Christ is not here, and that there is nothing for the new man here. You have a life beyond this place in a scene of unclouded joy; but there is nothing for you here. That is the wilderness. It is a terrible snare for christians to be looking for good things here since Christ is not here. Nothing is more hindering than to have expectations in this scene. If I am really living in the life of Christ, enjoying His tastes and interests, I have a joy outside this scene, and I find that nothing here helps me, and I do not desire anything here; I want to be supported as He was supported here, and that is manna. You will never get manna until you are living in His life. “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me” (Galatians 2: 20). That is your true life in which you live to God. Then, “the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me”. That is the new path for the wilderness. I do everything in dependence on Him, not in any ability of my own, but in complete dependence on God, and the greater the obstacles which I have to encounter, the greater the opportunity for me to prove the power of the Spirit of God in enabling me to overcome.
Ques “As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth me. even he shall live by me” (John 6: 57). [p. 330] Is that manna?
JBS No; it is a contrast to it. It is for living, not for the wilderness. I do not know anything so little known as manna.
Ques What do you say manna is?
JBS Manna is the way Christ lived on earth, a life of entire dependence, sustained by God. The world was a wilderness to Him, and He went through everything in divine beauty. The actual grace in which Christ walked here is the manna for us, and according as you are truly in the wilderness you get it.
Ques Would you say it is the life of Jesus on earth?
JBS It is His manner of life here, but you must be in His life outside of all here to get it. You must be with Him where He is, in order to be like Him where He was. Israel would not accept manna. They loathed it. (If you learn yourself truly, you will find out everybody else, and so can help them.) In the thirty-ninth year of their wilderness history they spake against God and against Moses, and their soul loathed the light food. The fiery serpents were sent. The real cause of the trouble (the devil, who, can touch unjudged flesh for its destruction) comes out, and a brazen serpent, which had never bitten anyone, is lifted up. This answers to John 3. The Son of man must be lifted up. He who knew no sin was made sin. Sin is condemned in the flesh, removed from God’s eye; and outside all the evil the relief comes. I am alive in Him; I am severed from the man under judgment in His death; I have tasted death in Another. The brazen serpent proved that there was no cure for the flesh but death. When I see Christ made sin, and that I am crucified with Christ, the day of everlasting blessing has dawned for me, I see that I am out of it all in Christ our Lord - out of death into life.
In Numbers 21: 17 you get “Spring up, O well”. You have the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of life; you have come experimentally into His life in the power [p. 331] of the Spirit, as in Romans 8: 2: “For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death”. The end of Romans 5 and chapter 8 go together; chapters 6 and 7 come between as parenthetic. Now you are properly set up in the wilderness. The brazen serpent and the springing well are really what we get in John 3 and 4. Israel makes a new start there. They are not in Canaan yet, not over Jordan, and they have battle till they get over. There is conflict on the other side, but of another character. For us it is that we are in the race of Hebrews 12. It is a battle all the way, your life is in your hand, and your only food manna.
Then there is a new force against you, and that is Balaam. Balaam represents the tactics of the enemy to get the people into social intercourse, and he did them more mischief than any other form of satanic opposition. So it is in this day. The Balaam snare is the masterpiece of satanic wickedness for the people of God. Every one of us has been more or less affected by the snare of Balaam. Nothing has corrupted us so much as company. It is the society that christians keep that does the mischief, and mark my words! every one is coloured b the lowest company that he keeps.
Ques Do you mean in business?
JBS When a man is in business he is not thinking of company, but if he relaxes and ungirds and gets into social intimacy that is not of Christ, he is corrupted. Our company is the christian company. See how Balaam corrupted the Corinthians by inviting them out. The more attractive a man’s company is the greater the danger. The snare may be in reading. Ink will soil you as well as mud: you generally find a man’s reading to be according to the company he keeps.
The Thessalonians had to encounter Amalek. That was open opposition, but the Balaam snare is subtle; he invites you, is gracious [p. 332] to you.
Ques What do you do when they invite?
JBS Refuse, unless I can go in the grace of Christ as a servant and not to enjoy myself. We get a lesson in a horse in a mill. He goes through the work of the mill all day, but is glad to get to the stable. You have to work, but the home of your heart is outside it all. You will never know this world to be a wilderness unless you have a home outside of it.
Ques What is the difference between Marah and the brazen serpent?
JBS Marah is suffering in the flesh because I will not gratify the flesh. And why not? Because Christ died for it. That sweetens it. “Arm yourselves ... with the same mind”. You refuse the flesh as it arises. In the brazen serpent I see Christ made sin for me, the old man gone, all gone in the cross; we do not come to this in a day.
Ques How do you get out of the wilderness?
JBS Through Jordan, and that is privilege. It is our privilege to be dead with Christ outside this scene. Jordan is realising in myself what the Red Sea makes me before God. I have through the death of Christ found a way, not only out of Egypt, but into Canaan. Romans is dead to the man - to sin. Colossians is dead to the world. There is often a long step between the two. I am not dead in myself, but I am dead with Christ. I am severed from my link with Adam and with the world by His death; but if I am dead with Christ I am alive in Him.
Rem Israel was seen to go into the Red Sea, and was not seen to come out. They are not seen to go into Jordan, but are seen to come out.
JBS Old commentators say that they went through the Red Sea in single file, but through Jordan abreast. When they come to Jordan there is no water in it. In the Red Sea the waters were a wall to them on the right hand and on the left. Stephen found that there was no water in Jordan. This is a poor place to [p. 333] one who has the joys of heaven in his heart, but I have died with Christ from the rudiments of the world.
You will never know Christ as Head until you are over Jordan.
Ques You say the wilderness is the place of testing?
JBS Yes, it is the test to us all, because it is where we practically learn death. I am through divine grace out of judgment; but more than that, I have a new place outside of all here. I have to go from one place to another. What sort of person am I in the interval between Egypt and Canaan? What a lamentable history Israel’s was, and at the same time what a wonderful record of the grace of God. “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God”. That was the principle of the Lord’s life as Man here. He learned obedience (not to obey, but obedience) by the things that He suffered. Philippians is the experience of a heavenly man. You must go to the top to be in that. You cannot have wilderness experience if you do not know your place and home in heaven. In Ephesians the believer is viewed as already in heavenly places united to Christ, and he comes back to all here in a new way.
Ques What is the hidden manna?
JBS What God saw in Christ here. In Revelation 2 we find, when the church had suffered from the snare of Balaam (evil association), that the overcomer gets the hidden manna - the way that blessed One walked here to the delight of God. The church is the complement of all that Christ was here. It has taken nineteen hundred years to bring out the complement, you a bit, and I a bit; millions of bits. People do not see that the church is the complement of the Man in whom God was manifested - that it all comes from Him.
I hope all your hearts are set on understanding the [p. 334] wilderness, and being truly in it for God. If they are, you will never forget this evening. We ought to know what the Lord is teaching us; He satisfieth the desire of every living thing. What a happy time we should have if we accepted the wilderness at the beginning - looking for nothing here but death, and in complete dependence on God. But we have to learn it; we all shrink from accepting the wilderness. We never enjoy Christ in heaven unless we accept death here. Paul and John found things getting rougher as they went on. Instead of the end of their days being spent in a quiet, shady retreat, one was an exile, and the other a prisoner. But they were very happy.
Ques Did they eat manna in the land?
JBS They ate it till they ate the old corn after the passover (see Joshua 5: 11).
The interval between Egypt and Canaan tests us all.