Thanks for taking time to join me on this video. Why don't I take a moment and just pray and ask the Lord to give you His heart and to use this to speak to you as I talk about lessons learned in the wilderness. Every one of us over the course of our lives will have wilderness experiences, and I'll define what I mean by that in a moment, but most of you know, yeah, I understand what you mean by wilderness experiences. Maybe you are in a wilderness yourself right now. Another way of looking at this is when we go through the dark valleys, and every one of us over the course of our lives will go through these, and in fact, if we want to grow in God, if we want to progress in God, if we want to become more like Jesus, if we want to be more fruitful, we will have our wilderness experiences.
So take a moment. Let's ask God to minister through His word to us and to minister life and grace. It's my prayers I speak these words. They would be words of life, words of spiritual truth, words of transformation and hope and edification. Lord, may it be so for your glory. Let me read to you what Paul wrote in Romans chapter 5. Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand, and we boast in the hope of the glory of God. That sounds wonderful, doesn't it? Not only so, he adds, though, but we also glory in our sufferings because we know that suffering produces perseverance, and perseverance character, and character hope, and hope does not put us to shame because God's love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.
James, Jacob, chapter 1. Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds. I mean, that's counterintuitive, isn't it? Because trials are difficult. Trials seep our joy. Trials are the things that we don't want to experience, but he says, consider it pure joy.
Why? Because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not liking anything. And then 1 Peter, chapter 1, verses 6 and 7. And all this, meaning the salvation that we have, forgiveness of sins through the death and resurrection of Jesus, and all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. So there is grief with the trials. The trials can be painful, difficult, and we'll talk about what happens in the wilderness in a moment.
He said, these trials have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith of greater worth than gold which perishes even though refined by fire may result in praise, glory, and honor when Jesus the Messiah is revealed. When we speak of wilderness, we speak of a place of deprivation. It's a place of death. It's a place of isolation. It's a place of hunger and thirst. It's even a place of disorientation.
It's a place of stripping and of revealing who we really are. You think of the children of Israel in the wilderness. What was revealed about their character? What was revealed about their nature?
And why were they in the wilderness so long? Some years ago Nancy was reflecting on this and she wrote this, is it possible that one of the reasons that God allows hardship and allows for a struggle on this earth is because of our tendency towards pride and forgetfulness and complacency. I'll raise my hand to that in terms of tendencies towards pride or forgetfulness or complacency. She said he certainly allowed it with the children of Israel but he used the hardships to prove his faithfulness. Let me stop Nancy's comments for a moment and say this, when you're in a place of abundance and all your needs met you can easily forget about the faithfulness of God. When everything is going well with you, look it's our human nature and tendency, not just the children of Israel. When everything is going well and life is going great it's easy to forget about God, to lose dependence.
We might be mildly grateful to him that things are going well but that's when it's easy to forget him. When you're in hardship, in despair you cry out, oh God, oh God help. When the pain is great, when the needs are great we're crying out.
When the crisis is there we're crying out. And then in it we see the faithfulness of God. In the wilderness is when the children of Israel experienced the miracle of the manna. In the wilderness is when water came out of a rock. In the wilderness they saw God's daily provision in the cloud and the fire every single day. When they got into the promised land the cloud the fire weren't there anymore and the manna wasn't there and the water wasn't coming from the rock anymore. So Nancy said this, he certainly allowed it, the hardship and struggle with the children of Israel, but he used the hardships to prove his faithfulness.
He wanted to show them that he would always come through. The suffering and struggles force us to continually rely on him and remind us that we must stay close and remember. I'd say it's far better to learn the lesson and remain humble and walk continually with him, trusting and believing rather than have to suffer so often because we are so forgetful. Not that God is doing the afflicting, the devil can take credit for all the evil in the world, but the enemy is orchestrating to destroy us. God turns to train us and if we are yielded we can learn and grow and fulfill his glorious plan for us which then brings us to utter victory, the devil loses. Listen to what Smith Wigglesworth said, known as the apostle of faith, died in 1947. If you knew the value of it you would praise God for trial more than for anything.
It is the trial that is used to purify you. It is in the fiery furnace of affliction that God gets you in the place where he can use you. The person that has no trials and no difficulty is the person whom God does not dare allow Satan to touch because he could not stand temptation.
But Jesus will not allow anyone to be tempted more than he is able to bear. Over the decades I've prayed, I've laid on my face for hours, I've said oh God purge me, purify me, make me more like your son, burn out the dross, burn out everything in me that's not according to your nature and plan and that it's not in harmony with the beauty of your son. And over the years God has taken me up on those prayers and he's put me through refiner's fire. Have you ever been through that? When you go through the fire, the refiner's fire brings the dross up to the surface.
You throw in silver and gold that looks fine to you but then what happens on the other side of it? The dross, the junk begins to come, you didn't know it was there. Maybe ambition, maybe selfish desire, maybe pride, maybe something else that was there.
Carnality, you didn't know was there and it shocks you. That's why the fires of revival are often resisted because so much comes up to the surface. Jesus said in John 15 that every branch in him, he's the vine where the branch is, his father is the gardener, every branch in him that bears fruit he prunes that it may bear more fruit. So if you're pressing into God, it could well be that the trial you're experiencing is specifically because you've been pressing into God. I mean when we go through it, it seems like there's no favor on us. When we go through the trial, when we're in the wilderness, it seems like God is distant. As I said, it's a place of deprivation. It's a place of difficulty. That's why we call it the wilderness.
It can be disorienting which way is forward, which way is up, which way is down. But this is happening as we follow the Lord, as we seek him. It's happening so that we grow. And maybe we're in the wilderness because of sin or our own decisions in our lives. This is the place where God can get us back on track. So let me share some lessons that I've recently learned or that have deepened in my own life as I've been through my own wilderness experience, through the fiery trials. And again, that's where some of you find yourself right now. That may be why you're watching this video.
You're just researching for wilderness and here it comes up. Perhaps the Lord will speak to you through this. There's a beautiful verse in Deuteronomy 8. Deuteronomy 8 verse 3. It says this in Hebrew, and he humbled you.
This is Moses speaking to the children of Israel after 40 years in the wilderness. And he humbled you. And he caused you to hunger.
And he gave you this manatee which neither you nor your fathers have known. That man doesn't live by bread alone. That man lives instead by every word that comes out of the mouth of God. So God humbles us. He causes us to hunger.
He takes away the things we're used to. And he feeds us in a new way to teach us that we don't live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from his mouth. So during this season in my own life, I have been preaching and teaching regularly since 1973 when I was 18 years old. And if you go back, oh, say to early 2024, I was doing five live radio broadcasts a week plus five pre-recorded radio broadcasts a week.
So 10 new broadcasts a week, five of them live, teaching at six different ministry schools, writing on average five new articles, five new op-eds a week, working on normally two or three books at the same time, and then traveling, preaching. It was beautiful. It was wonderful. I was thriving. I was enjoying my monthly prayer retreats where we can just get along with God.
But suddenly, everything stopped. No preaching. No teaching. I mean, we're talking about from the last message I preached at a church to the next one scheduled, like seven months, seven months. Not a single live radio broadcast for longer than that or live broadcast of any kind for longer than that.
And no normal teaching at all the schools and no traveling to preach. All of it stopped. All of it stopped. All the things that were part of my life and that were so much of my identity all stripped away. And that may be your experience of all the things that were part of your identity getting stripped away.
And you know what you find? Being a child of God is more than enough. I don't need to preach or teach or have a platform or have a YouTube channel or have the line of fire ministry or have anything or a school affiliation to be content with God and to be fulfilled as a child of God. I always knew this to be true, that it's our identity, who we are in him is more important than what we do for him. But living it out, experiencing it, just having the beauty of his presence, just being alone with him, that's all we need.
I don't want to be trite when I say this, but he really is all we need. God really is enough. When you have nothing else in the wilderness except God, only God, he is more than enough.
And as I said, the wilderness is a place of death. It was for me a time to lay everything down, dire fresh to reputation, dire fresh to ministry, dire fresh to having a ministry or having a name. I said, God, I'll go pray in a cave and just be alone. Whatever you want me to do or I'll speak or I'll speak to multitudes of people.
Whatever you want pleases me. And as Jesus said, verse so many of you know well in John 12 24, unless a grain of wheat falls in the ground and dies, it remains alone. If it dies, it bears much fruit. So I've taken these months away from public ministry as a time to really reflect, to really die, to really lay things down. Oh, obviously, until the day we see Jesus face to face, we'll be growing and we'll be dying to different things.
But it's been a very profound and deep experience. So in the midst of the pain, there is this holy visitation, these holy experiences you have. There's something else about the wilderness and it's a place of hunger.
It's a place of thirst. I think of Psalm 63, one of my favorite Psalms. I've quoted so much of it over the decades in Hebrew. And it's a Psalm where David's in the wilderness of Judah. Now there are two different times in his life he's in the wilderness. One is fleeing from King Saul and the other is fleeing from Absalom, his son, when Absalom takes over the kingdom and steals it from David.
And it's clearly the latter that's the case, that this is as David is king. As you read the Psalm to the end, he's the king, but he's had to flee. So he's no longer in the palace. He's no longer surrounded by all these people who are honoring him as the king as he sits on his throne.
He no longer has access to the tabernacle to worship God there. And what does he say? Elohim! Oh God! Eliata! You are my God!
Ashacharecha! I will seek you early. I will seek you earnestly. My soul thirsts for you. My body longs for you as in a dry and thirsty land without water. So I've seen you in the sanctuary beholding your power and your glory. Your loving kindness, your steadfast love is better than life. So my lips will praise you. He goes on from there.
What's the point? He doesn't have the royal throne. He doesn't have the entourage. He doesn't have all the favor that he had. He's in the wilderness and what's he hungry and thirsting for? God! God!
Not the other stuff. God! I want to be in the sanctuary to see you and encounter you again as I have before.
And I was I was doing a prayer walk some months back and as I was doing the prayer walk I was quoting the verses in Hebrew saying, I was emphasizing it. My soul thirsts for you. My body longs for you.
I said, God that's not true. I'm not longing for you. I'm not thirsting for you. I'm not like that that deer panting for you. God deepened my hunger for you.
Not for other things but for you. Some years back I was reflecting what really brings me the greatest joy and I thought ministry breakthroughs. Boy when I see God breakthrough and things happen that I've been praying for that gives me the greatest joy.
I was immediately smitten in my heart and I thought wait a second. My greatest joy should be just the presence of God itself. Psalm 16 and your presence is fullness of joy, a satiation of joy. It's powerful in Hebrew. I thought just you, you should be the source of joy.
Just you. So the wilderness reduces you, takes away the other things and it's just oh God. Listen, listen to what Nancy wrote about this. She said, what do those do who are hungry? They look for food desperately. They're consumed with the thought of eating. It is the foremost thing in their minds and when they find food they eat it. What do those do who are thirsty? What do those do who are thirsty? All they can think about is getting to where the water is.
They do not busy themselves with any other task. They look for drink intently. That's what you're doing in the wilderness right? You're going to die unless you find a place where you can get a drink. There's a pool, there's something, there's some source of water. Nancy continues and when they find drink they drink. When it was hungry and thirsty it doesn't just sit there. They look for food and drink and when they finally find what they know to be food and drink they don't just sit there and look at it.
They lift the food and drink to their mouths and take it in. Jesus is the bread of life. He is our all and all. We must eat him, drink him, live in him. We must eat and drink the word of God, the word of life. If our hunger and thirst for him is the sole thing in this world that drives us then we are consumed with him and nothing else takes preeminence. We must get to Jesus's because he alone has everything we want and we need.
Yeah those words spoke to me as well as I reflected on some of the the meditations that Nancy had put together years back on the wilderness and read them afresh and in the midst of the fiery trial that we've been passing through. Hunger and thirst for God. Are you hungry?
Are you thirsty? We're not filled many times because we're not really hungry and thirsty. We're not filled many times because our pursuit of God is quite secondary to other things.
It's often superficial. It's often full of distraction. It's often lacking real ardor and intensity and yet we're never going to get anywhere in life if if there's something that you're absolutely desperate to achieve. If you're a musician and you're desperate to get to a certain place you practice and you practice and you practice and you're obsessed with that.
If you're an athlete and you're determined to win you just that's your every waking hour that's what you're thinking about and you're looking to get better and better so that you may be completed for the Olympics and your diet, your training, that's what you live for. That's what you think about. Some people are just consumed with business and finances and that's they're driven they're driven they think about it day and night and yet it comes to our pursuit of God. Oh gosh let me do my quiet time okay get and read a chapter and thank you Lord. We're never going to get anywhere like that and so many times I've been praying I'm saying Lord I'm not focused. Lord there's no depth to my prayer. I've been convicted.
Lord I feel so superficial. I've prayed it over and over over the years. Deep in me God.
Deep in me as a human being deep in me. Perhaps some of you can relate to that and you say I don't have it in me then you say to God Lord I'm lacking. I don't have the hunger. I don't have the thirst. I'm asking to make me hungry and thirsty and that's often why we end up in the wilderness.
Listen to what Smith Wigglesworth said about his own experience. He said beloved if you read the scriptures you will never find anything about the easy time. All the glories come out of hard times and if you are really reconstructed it will be in a hard time.
And friends I'm 70 years old now over the decades I've seen that's how it is. The times of greatest growth and transformation have been the times of greatest crisis. The times of greatest desperation.
The times of greatest pain. Sometimes because of what others have done to me. Sometimes because of mistakes I've made. Sometimes just because of the circumstances of life. I never want to pass through those times again. You're nodding because you've been through them too. But it's often the only way we get where we need to go.
Wigglesworth said this. If you're really reconstructed it will be in a hard time. It won't be in a singing meeting. But at a time when you think all things are dried up. When you think there is no hope for you. And you have passed everything. Then that is the time that God makes the man.
When tried by fire that God purges you. Takes the dross away and brings forth the pure gold. Only melted gold is minted. Only moistened clay receives the mold.
Only softened wax receives the seal. Only broken contrite hearts receive the mark. As the potter turns us on his wheel. Shaped and burnt to take and keep the heavenly mold.
The stamp of God's pure gold. What does this look like in Wigglesworth's own life? Here is a man who reportedly raised a number of people from the dead. Here is a man whose message of faith speaks to millions of people to this day. I spoke to a man that traveled with Wigglesworth years ago. I spoke to people that were in his meetings years ago. I spoke to I believe it was his great-grandson when I was in England.
And overwhelmingly you hear the same thing. The half has not been told. The half has not been told about the way God used this man.
This is basically an illiterate plumber. His wife taught him to read and he just read one book all his life. The Bible. Someone once asked Smith Wigglesworth, how long do you pray? He said, I rarely pray more than a half hour at a time.
And the guy felt good. Okay good because I don't really pray long. And then Wigglesworth said, but I never go a half hour without praying. It was said he'd never go 15 minutes without either quoting from scripture or reading the scripture. And because of that he was so immersed in the reality of who God was that that became the determination of his life. Who God is. What God says.
But listen to this. This is his own experience. Before God could bring me to this place he broke me a thousand times. I have wept. I have groaned. I have travailed many a night until God broke me. It seems to me that until God has mowed you down you never can have this long suffering for others.
It's true isn't it? There have been times when I have been pressed through circumstances and it seemed as if a dozen railroad engines were going over me. I can relate.
Some of you can relate. But I have found that the hardest things are just lifting places into the grace of God. During this wilderness through which I've passed in recent months I went back to some of the old hymns. There's the the hymn I am thine O Lord by Fanny Crosby. Draw me near and near blessed Lord to the cross where thou hast died. Draw me near and near blessed Lord to thy precious bleeding side. And I've gone back to the Lord and prayed one of the stanzas. O the pure delight of a single hour that before thy throne I spend as I kneel in prayer and with thee my God I convene as friend with friend.
So Lord that's what I want that's what I want more than anything. Just that depth of communion friend with friend. Another old hymn we sang in the church where I got saved. I come to the garden alone. The dew is still on the roses and talks about the joy we share as we carry there and none others ever know.
I said Lord that's what I want more than anything. The wilderness reduces us it strips us it brings us to the end of ourselves it brings us to the place of desperation and you know when you're in the garden and you lose all hope you go through times when you lose all hope. When Jesus tells Jairus only believe. Only believe.
Fear not only believe. Why is he telling that? Because they just got the report that his daughter died. Jairus' daughter died. He was desperately trying to get Jesus to go and heal her before she died because she was gravely ill. The synagogue ruler. Yahir.
Jairus. Desperately trying to to get Jesus there before she died and along the way the woman with the issue of blood comes she's healed and Jairus comes and says come on my daughter's gonna die you gotta get there and then the people come she's dead she's dead she's dead it's too late it's over it's over and then Jesus says fear not believe only and she'll live. Oh certain things we will not get back in this life I understand that. People die and they're not resurrected. People get sick and they're not healed.
I understand that but that's the whole point. Even when all hope has been lost even even when that particular battle that particular life has been lost he's still saying only believe because he can bring life out of death. He he can bring beauty out of ashes. The ashes mean the thing's been burnt up.
It's been burnt up it doesn't exist anymore. He can bring beauty out of that. One one or two more thoughts. Going through the valley is something that will happen. So the valley is it's it's dark it's deep it's the mountaintop wonderful singing praising life is good everything's great family's healthy ministries good businesses thriving joy all good. I love the mountaintop. Oh the mountaintop's very nice place to live but we also go through the valleys. Here's the thing Psalm 91 the amazing psalm of of divine protection as we live in that secret place and no plague will touch us no no evil will come near us and yet at the end of the psalm God says about the the the one that walks and lives in that secret place with him am I in trial and test and difficulties. You're still going to go through difficulties but he's with us. So Psalm 23 that we know so well I'll deny who you are the Lord is my shepherd I like nothing and it talks about it causes us to lie down but there's still waters and and and and and to leads us into the green pastures and we lie down there and besides the still waters he restores our soul even when I walk through the the valley of this of the shadow of death the valley of deepest darkness I will fear no evil why because you are with me your rotten staff they comfort me you will go through the valleys you will go through the hard times it's part of the process of growth it's probably the rhythm of life it's probably part of the fruit of our own choices it's what happens but he's with us in the trial and because of that we don't have to fear so when he says in Isaiah 43 when you walk through the waters they won't overwhelm you we will walk through the water through the fire they will not burn us sometimes we're burning you're reading a promise you're looking at the promise when you go through the fire you will not be burned and you're like but I am burning right now I am on fire right now but somehow he gets us through and we come out whole we come out healthier it's amazing so right now if you're in the midst of that trial what the devil wants you to think is you're in this trial you're in the wilderness you're in the valley because there's something wrong with you and because God is not with you maybe you're in the valley because of a terrible decision you made or a sin you committed and you think oh my god's not with me have you asked his forgiveness have you humbled yourself have have you have you gone through the cross and the blood then he's forgiven you if you've truly repented he's forgiven you and he is with you he is with you and and even when we're not in a repentant state he's working in our hearts to bring us to repentance in other words he's for us not against us he wants to help us not hurt us and if we'll submit to him and say lord you will be done you will be done he'll work beautifully in you and one thing I've realized about tests and trials is you go through them till you pass them let me say it again one thing about tests and trials you go through them until you pass them which means that maybe I can't pass this particular test I keep falling short I keep falling into fear I keep acting in the flesh I keep reacting instead of worshiping whatever it is well he may pull things out for a little while he may remove you from the wilderness for a little while take you out of the valley and you think okay I passed that test no no it's just we weren't quite ready for the next grade we'll go through it in a different form until we do pass it until we do grow so as I've been in such a hurry while I'm in the wilderness when I've been the refiner's fire when I'm in the valley I want to get out now I want to get out now I bet okay learn my lessons I'm ready to get out and maybe he knows that I've learned one lesson out of ten and he wants to teach me a few more at this time so rather than being in too much of a hurry how about we say Lord accomplish what you want in me help me to learn what I'm supposed to learn the world help me to grow in my relationship with you help me to deepen my fellowship and communion with you help me to die to all the things you want me to die to that Jesus may be fully glorified in me that I may radiate your presence that that I may be a beacon of joy and life and hope and truth so Lord do your work in us in the world in us I want to share one last thing so I have had a very intense schedule for decades and I've I've enjoyed it I've enjoyed running hard I've often said God does not rebuke me for my laziness but for overwork because in the overwork I can neglect him being so busy working for him that I neglect just being with him and gazing on his beauty and fellowshipping with him just for him just for that relationship and over these months no preaching no teaching for the great majority of the time no writing certainly no publishing anything posting anything just separated separated slowing down slowing down something else has happened in me to change me when our younger daughter Meg got married we were in Pensacola it was in the midst of the Brownsville revival John Kilpatrick was was preaching preaching a message and I remember as he was preaching it was a Sunday morning they were getting married that afternoon as as as he was preaching I I know and I journaled it what the Lord was saying to me through his message was stop and smell the roses just enjoy the day enjoy because I was going like 80 hours a week in the midst of the revival with intense ministry schedule and I just knew God was saying just enjoy the day your daughter's getting married enjoy the day stop and smell the roses and smell the roses that has not been my lifestyle it has absolutely not been my lifestyle so some time back I don't know maybe six months ago maybe a little longer Nancy and I were just taking a walk one day and I said to her hey hon I said I I'm learning to to stop and smell the roses I'm going to slow down more and stop and smell the roses and she said to me but you have to enjoy smelling the roses and I thought oh I'm not quite there yet but um over these months slowing down I I'm enjoying smelling the roses I'm not just stopping to smell the roses I'm enjoying smelling the roses and maybe for some of you that's what God's saying the busyness of family of business of ministry of life God's saying hey just just slow down slow down stop and smell the roses stop and enjoy smelling the roses so I pray that these reflections are meaningful to you they are hot off the press and that this is what I have been living through and experiencing over these months there's so much more that's happened to me I hope can be constructive and helpful for you in the days to come so may the Lord bless you may his smiling grace be upon you
