Coming up from the Wilderness 2
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II. But I pass on to show WHERE the suffering Church of Christ now is ; because she must evidently be in the wilderness before she can come up from it. The "wilderness" is a standing emblem and figure in the word of God, and derives much of its significance from this circumstance– that in those countries there were, as there still are, vast tracts of desert sand. In our humid, favored climate, where vegetation is so luxuriant and beautiful, we can scarcely picture to ourselves what a desert is in an almost tropical zone, where no blade of grass grows, and where all is waste and wild. But the regions east and south of Palestine are full of such barren tracts. That was one reason why a desert wilderness became a standing figure in God's word. Another reason is, because the children of Israel had wandered 40 years in the wilderness, which therefore became a standing emblem of the Church of God in her present, suffering condition. They sojourned there for 40 years, sustained by manna from heaven and water from the rock, as the Church of Christ lives now upon the bread of heaven and the streams of salvation.
But I have to explain, as the Lord may enable, why the present state and condition of the Church of God is compared to a wilderness; and there are certain features in a wilderness that set it forth in a very striking and experimental manner.
1. A wilderness is not only not cultivated, but it is UNCULTIVABLE. No cultivation by man can induce it to bring forth either fruit or flower. It is a barren sand– a wild tract on which the rays of the sun eternally beat; and there being but a wide, desolate waste of sand, nothing can possibly grow there which possesses vegetable life but a few stunted thorny shrubs. Such is the natural heart of man– not only not cultivated, but not cultivable. You never can get anything spiritually good to grow in man's carnal mind. I say spirituallygood, because I am not speaking of anything naturally and morally good. When the Lord, then, would have good grow in a man's heart, he gives him a new heart and a new spirit; and in that new heart and new spirit the graces of the Blessed Spirit, planted there by his own hand, thrive and grow under his fostering eye.
Whatever good there is in man, it is by the grace of God; for "every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights. "From me," says the Lord, "is your fruit found." "As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abides in the vine, no more can you except you abide in me." It is true there still are some relics of the fall in natural kindness, compassion, benevolence, and a large amount of social affection; and there are many beautiful people in the various walks of life who, so far from being religious, would scorn even the very idea of a religious profession. It is indispensable to the very fabric of society that husbands should love their wives, parents their children, and that there should be a general tone of uprightness and morality pervading public thought and opinion. But here it begins and ends. The glory of God is not sought by them, and without this there is nothing spiritually good or acceptable in his sight. Justly, therefore, is the natural heart of man compared to "a wilderness," where dreariness and desolation ever reign.
2. But there is another reason why our present life is compared to a wilderness. It is a SOLITARY PLACE, as the Lord himself calls it. "The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them" (Isaiah 35:1). In the wilderness, no inhabitants dwell with fixed and settled abodes. Men pass through it, but they pass through it in haste. There are no towns or villages, busy cities, or crowded haunts of men. Mere migratory bands of roving Arabs, dwelling in 'tents', sweep over it like a cloud of rolling sand. So with this life– it is merely a state of transition. We have no abiding city here; no resting place; no home; but are always in a state of change. Like the roving Arab, we live in tents, pitched for the night; and, like the traveler described, Psalm 107, "wander in the wilderness in a solitary way, and find no city to dwell in." And this is true as much of our heart itself as of our present life. As the wilderness naturally is a place where men do not and cannot have any fixed habitation; so the heart of man, in our present state, is as restless as the moving sand, and as unsteady as the wearied foot that presses it. "Arise, depart, this is not your rest," sounds as with a trumpet tongue through the wilderness.
3. But there is another reason why the wilderness aptly represents our present state. In the wilderness, there are many toils and sufferings. The very circumstance of passing through it is a toil in itself. Had you under a burning sun to toil through sand perhaps half up to your knees, and that day after day– sometimes, maddened by the scorching rays beating upon your head; sometimes enveloped in clouds of dust; sometimes almost stifled by the pestilential winds that blow across the desert; with little food and less water– what labor and suffering would be your lot! And how again and again it would seem as if you were too faint and weary, when you cast your eye over the wide waste, ever to hold out, or safely reach the place of your destination. So it is in grace. The toils and sorrows, labors and sufferings of the present life make it indeed a wilderness to all who truly fear God.
4. Again the wilderness was not only a place of severe toil and suffering, but one of great peril and danger. Moses reminds the children of Israel of "that great and terrible wilderness, wherein were fiery serpents, and scorpions, and drought" (Deut. 8:15). Jeremiah speaks of "the Arabian in the wilderness" (3:2), as we know there are to this day various tribes of Bedouin Arabs, ever on the watch to seize the traveler, strip him of all his goods, treat him with violence, and leave him to perish in the sand. Violent winds also, alike noixious and pestilential, blow across the desert, as "the wind that smote the four corners of the house where Job's eldest son dwelt" (1:19), and such as "the blast" which God sent to smite the host of Sennacherib (2 Kings 19:7, 35). Thus, besides the intrinsic perils of the wilderness, as a barren tract of sand, there were dangers of another kind that assailed the unhappy traveler.
So it is in the things of God. There are fiery serpents and scorpions in our own hearts, in the sins that bite and pierce with envenomed tooth and sting. There is Satan, too, like a Bedouin Arab, with his long spear, always upon the prowl, and ever seeking to harass, if he cannot destroy. Winds also of temptation, both violent and pestilential, howl across the soul, as if they would overwhelm it with the power, and infect it with the poison of every inward and outward evil. And there are moving sands that threaten to stifle and suffocate the life of God within in the working up and rolling onward column of the corruptions of our own depraved Nature.
5. Once more– the wilderness has NO FOOD. The children of Israel were sustained by manna from heaven. The wilderness had NO WATER. The children of Israel had to drink of the rock that followed them. So of this world. In a wilderness world, there is no food; in a wilderness heart, no water. Famine and thirst are perils enough, were there no other to stamp the desert with its own peculiar character.
For these reasons– and there are doubtless others that I have not mentioned– the present state of the Church of God is compared in Scripture to a wilderness; and every child of God has to prove it, sooner or later, in his own experience. He has to learn in and for himself that solitary way, that path of trial, temptation, and exercise, which will make him feel this valley of tears is not his fixed abode; that it is not life to live here, nor is happiness to be found below the skies; that if he is to have happiness unmixed with sorrow and woe, it must be when he has dropped the body and has passed into the mansions of glory, where tears are forever wiped from off all faces.
III. Pass we on to our third point, which is the description given of the bride as "COMING UP." She is described by the Holy Spirit as sojourning in the wilderness, but she is not viewed by him as in its very heart and center; for she is represented as "coming up." Now, how does she come up? When she can leave, so to speak, the wilderness behind her in her feelings; and, so experimentally come out of it, as, in the anticipations of her soul, to be looking forward to a country altogether different from it. If you had literally to travel through a wilderness like the great Sahara of Africa, or the deserts of Arabia, your eyes would be continually looking forward that they might see on the horizon the land to which you were bending your steps– not a wilderness like the region in which you were traveling, but a land of brooks and streams, where you might find food and shelter, rest and repose. Now every desire of your heart to get over the wilderness, every stretching forth of your anxious mind to be delivered from the toils and perils that surround you, would, in fact, be mentally coming up, though many a weary mile might still intervene.
1. To come up, then, from the wilderness, is first, to come up out of OURSELVES ; for we are ourselves the wilderness. It is our wilderness heart that makes the world what it is to us– our own barren frames– our own desert, solitary, and bewildered minds– our own worthlessness, inability, and lack of spiritual fruitfulness– our own trials, temptations, and exercises– our own hungering and thirsting after righteousness– in a word, it is what passes in our own bosom that makes the world to us a dreary desert.
Carnal people find the world no wilderness. It is an Eden to them; or, at least, they try hard to make it so. They seek all their pleasure from, and build all their happiness upon it; nor do they dream of any other harvest of joy and delight, but what may be repaid in this happy valley, where youth, health, and good spirits are ever imagining new scenes of gratification.
But the child of grace, exercised with a thousand difficulties, passing through many temporal and spiritual sorrows, and inwardly grieved with his own want of heavenly fruitfulness, finds the wilderness within. But he still comes up out of it, and this he does by looking upward with believing eyes to him who alone can bring him out. He comes up out of his own righteousness, and shelters himself under Christ's righteousness; out of his own strength, and trusts to Christ's strength; out of his own wisdom, and hangs upon Jesus' wisdom; and out of his own tempted, tried, bewildered, and perplexed condition to find rest and peace in the finished work of the Son of God.
And thus he comes up out of the wilderness of self, not actually, but experimentally. Every desire of his soul to be delivered from a wilderness condition is, in fact, a coming up. Every heart-sickening sight that he has of sin and of himself as a sinner; every aspiration after Jesus; every longing look, earnest sigh, piteous cry, or laboring groan, all are a "coming up." Every act of faith upon his gracious Majesty; every casting of his soul upon him who is able to save to the uttermost; every feeling of love, every tender thought and affectionate desire, with all the struggling of his spiritual faculties, all the straining of his anxious eye, all the stretching forth of his longing arms to embrace the Lord the Lamb, and get a manifestation of his love to his soul– may all be summed up in the expression, "a coming up from the wilderness."
His turning his back upon an ungodly world; renouncing its pleasures, its honors, its pride, and its ambition; seeking union and communion with Jesus as his chief delight; and accounting all things but loss and rubbish for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus his Lord as revealed to his soul by the power of God– this, too, is coming up from the wilderness.
Giving up everything inconsistent with the Lord's grace and glory; renouncing everything which has not the stamp of God's approbation upon it; tearing himself from friends, however near and dear, if they would keep him from the Lord, if they would throw their arms around him to prevent him leaving them for Christ; struggling out of all the entwinings of sin, all the embraces of unhallowed desire, all the suggestions of pride, all the workings of self-righteousness, and all the sinkings of despair– to break away from these ties and fetters, and to stretch forth the hands of faith to embrace Jesus who alone can deliver him from his destruction– this is coming up from the wilderness.
To love the dear saints of God; to desire to walk with them in sweet affection and holy fellowship; to esteem them the excellent of the earth; to make them our choice companions, is also a coming up from the wilderness, because they too are all coming up– and we come up with them in heart and soul. It is then as if the saints of God took each other by the hand and said– "Come along, brother; come along, sister; let us come out of the world; let us leave this wilderness in which we have so long dwelt; let us journey onwards to a heavenly country. Home is in sight. Heaven is in view. Those who have gone before us have safely reached the heavenly country. They all came up from the wilderness; they all came out of the world; and they all looked to and leaned upon Jesus. Let us come up together as they did. Let us join hands, hearts, and affections, and all as one band come up from the wilderness, and walk in sweet union, as men whose hearts God has touched."
But I may further remark that it does not say– "Who is this that has come up?" nor "Who is this that will come up?" But, "Who is this that comes up?" She is ever coming up and yet never comes out; ever coming up and yet still in– coming out of self , and yet often miserably entangled with self; coming up from her own righteousness , and yet often ensnared by her own righteousness; coming up out of sin , and yet, inwardly at least, often entangled in sin; coming up out of temptation , and yet often overcome by temptation; coming up out of everything ungodly , and yet often bowed down by what is ungodly; coming up out of doubt and fear , and yet held back by doubt and fear; coming up out of unbelief , and yet continually fettered by unbelief; coming up out of sorrow , and yet again and again overwhelmed by sorrow– so she is ever coming up, ever coming up, and yet until death snaps the slender thread, never fully comes out; or if for a few moments she does come out into any sweet enjoyment of Christ's love, yet again and again she falls back to her old state; again and again she has to sojourn in the wilderness. She thus resembles the children of Israel, who in the first year of their pilgrimage came to the borders of the promised land, and yet had to retrace their steps to the Red Sea.
IV. But the fourth and last thing said of her is that she is"leaning upon her beloved." She has then a choice companion; and if I know anything of her heart, she would not have any other. It is sweet, you know, for those who love one another to be together– two lovers are quite sufficient company for each other, and a third would only be an intruder. So it is with the Church of Christ, and her glorious covenant Head. She is in the best of all company, when she is with him; for she is leaning upon one who is dear to her, and to whom she is more than equally dear; for she can love him only with a human heart, but he can love her with a divine. He loves her with the heart of God, and we at best can only love him with the heart of man. As much, therefore, as God exceeds man, so does the love of Christ to his church exceed the love of the church to Christ.
Do you do you think can by any calculation measure the breadth, length, depth, or height of the love of Christ? Before you can do that, you must be able to measure God. And as you cannot measure him, who is infinite, you can never measure, as you never can comprehend, the love of Christ, for "it passes knowledge." But "we love him because he first loved us." We have but a drop of his love, at best, in our soul; he has the ocean of love in his own heart. We may have a ray out of the sun; but the sun himself is full of rays. A ray may burst through a cloud, or shine through a chink in a shutter; but that ray is not the sun. He has millions of rays beside that one.
So the Lord may shine upon a sinner's heart with a beam of his love or a ray of his glory; but when he has given that, he still has in himself all the fullness of God. He has millions and millions and millions of beams and rays of love with which to shine upon his saints, both in heaven and earth. Now it is a 'reflection of his love' that makes us love him; and so far as we have a measure of love to his most blessed Majesty, we lean upon him. That posture implies weakness, and yet tender affection. It is a lovely sight to see a wife leaning upon a husband's arm– it is her privilege to lean, as it is his privilege to support. But it is not a lovely sight to see a loose woman hanging on a man's arm. So in grace. It is a lovely sight to see Christ and the church in sweet union. But it would not be a lovely sight to see your son walking down the street with a prostitute. That would be no pleasing scene to meet a father's eye. To see him walking with his wife might make you admire his attentive affection; to see him arm in arm with one who is a disgrace to her sex would shock your every feeling. Thus to see the church in union with Christ, and as such leaning on him, is a lovely sight. But to see professors of religion arm in arm with the world– I leave the application of the figure to you.
To "lean upon" Christ as "her beloved" is for the church to lean upon his glorious Person as the God-man– upon his covenant engagements– upon his unchanging love– upon his atoning blood– upon his justifying obedience– in a word, upon all that he is as Jesus. Thus to lean upon him is to rest all that we have for time and eternity wholly upon the Son of God and his finished work. And this the Church of God is here represented as doing. The Holy Spirit brings her before our mind as coming up from a wilderness world "leaning upon her beloved." And who can the Church's "beloved" be but Jesus?
Is that your posture? Would the virgin daughters of Jerusalem, if they looked upon you, say, with holy, wonder– "Who is this man coming up out of the wilderness leaning upon his beloved?" Would they see you coming up in prayer, desire, and supplication? Would they behold you at any time on your knees looking up with longing eye, or in the enjoyment of manifested mercy, leaning, like John, upon his bosom? Would they view you having, or even desiring to have, any union or communion with Jesus? And would such say of you– "This person is coming up out of the wilderness, and he is leaning upon Jesus as his beloved"? Could any friend or relative say of you– "Who is this man that was once buried in the world– whom I once knew so light and trifling, so proud and vain, so given up to sin and self? O how Christ is now his all! What an alteration!" Or would the saints of God say of you– "How this man has come out of self, and how evidently he is leaning upon Jesus?" Would any one that knows you and fears God say this of you?
Now if you can find anything in your soul's experience corresponding to what the Holy Spirit has laid down in our text, you are manifestly one of Christ's dear people; you belong to the Church of God; you are coming up out of the wilderness; you are leaning upon your beloved. And leaning upon him here, you will see him face to face hereafter. You will be with him in bliss; and the day will come when you will see him without a veil between, and admire, adore, and enjoy him to all eternity!
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