View source for Coming up from the wilderness'

----
'''Back to [[Man's religion & God's religion 6]]'''
----
<p>&quot;<strong>Who is this coming up from the wilderness,<br />
    leaning upon her Beloved?</strong>&quot; Song of Solomon 8:5<br />
  <br />
  To come up from the wilderness, is to come up out <br />
  of OURSELVES; for we are ourselves the wilderness. <br />
  It is <strong>our wilderness heart</strong> that makes the world <br />
  what it is to us . . .<br />
  our own barren frames; <br />
  our own bewildered minds; <br />
  our own worthlessness and inability;<br />
  our own lack of spiritual fruitfulness;<br />
  our own trials, temptations, and exercises;<br />
  our own hungering and thirsting after righteousness.<br />
  <br />
  In a word, <strong>it is what passes in our own bosom <br />
    that makes the world to us a dreary desert.</strong> <br />
  <br />
  Carnal people find the world no wilderness. It is an <br />
  Eden to them! Or at least they try hard to make it so. <br />
  They seek all their pleasure from, and build all their <br />
  happiness upon it. Nor do they dream of any other <br />
  harvest of joy and delight, but what may be repaid <br />
  in this 'happy valley', where youth, health, and good <br />
  spirits are ever imagining new scenes of gratification.<br />
  <br />
  But the child of grace, exercised with a thousand <br />
  difficulties, passing through many temporal and <br />
  spiritual sorrows, and inwardly grieved with his own <br />
  lack of heavenly fruitfulness, finds the wilderness <br />
  within. <br />
  <br />
  But he still comes up out of it, and this he does <br />
  by looking upward with believing eyes to Him who <br />
  alone can bring him out. <br />
  <br />
  He comes up out of his own <strong>righteousness</strong>, and <br />
  shelters himself under Christ's righteousness.<br />
  <br />
  He comes up out of his own <strong>strength</strong>, <br />
  and trusts to Christ's strength.<br />
  <br />
  He comes up out of his own <strong>wisdom</strong>, <br />
  and hangs upon Jesus' wisdom.<br />
  <br />
  He comes up out of his own tempted, tried, <br />
  bewildered, and perplexed condition, to find rest <br />
  and peace in the finished work of the Son of God.<br />
  <br />
  And thus he comes up out of <strong>the wilderness of <br />
    self</strong>, not actually, but experimentally. Every desire <br />
  of his soul to be delivered from his 'wilderness<br />
  sickening sight' that he has of sin and of himself <br />
  as a sinner. Every aspiration after Jesus, every <br />
  longing look, earnest sigh, piteous cry, or labouring <br />
  groan, all are a <strong>coming up from the wilderness</strong>. <br />
  <br />
  His turning his back upon an ungodly world; renouncing <br />
  its pleasures, its honours, its pride, and its ambition; <br />
  seeking communion with Jesus as his chief delight; <br />
  and accounting all things but loss and rubbish for <br />
  the excellency of the knowledge of Jesus his Lord <br />
  as revealed to his soul by the power of God; this,<br />
  also, is <strong>coming up from the wilderness</strong>.
----
'''Back to [[Man's religion & God's religion 6]]'''