The Way Through the Wilderness
The wilderness of the desert. Parched ground. Sharp rocks. Shifting sand. Burning sun. Thorns that cut. The mirage of an oasis. Wavy horizons ever beyond reach. This is the wilderness of the desert.
The wilderness of the soul. Parched promises. Sharp words. Shifting commitments. Burning anger. Rejections that cut. The mirage of hope. Distant solutions ever beyond reach. This is the wilderness of the soul.
Some of you know the first. All of you know the second. Jesus, however, knew both. With skin still moist with Jordan River water, he turned away from food and friends and entered the country of hyenas, lizards, and vultures. He was “led around by the Spirit in the wilderness for forty days, being tempted by the devil. And He ate nothing during those days, and when they had ended, He became hungry” (Luke 4:1–2 NASB).
The wilderness was not a typical time for Jesus. Normalcy was left at the Jordan and would be rediscovered in Galilee. The wilderness was and is atypical. A dark parenthesis in the story of life. A fierce season of face-to-face encounters with the devil. You needn’t journey to Israel to experience the wilderness. A cemetery will do just fine. So will a hospital. Grief can lead you into the desert. So can divorce or debt or depression.
In the Bible the number forty is associated with lengthy battles. Noah faced rain for forty days. Moses faced the desert for forty years. Jesus faced temptation for forty nights. Please note: he didn’t face temptation for one day out of forty. Jesus was “in the wilderness for forty days, being tempted by the devil.” The battle wasn’t limited to three questions. Jesus spent a month and ten days slugging it out with Satan.
The wilderness is a long, lonely winter. Doctor after doctor. Résumé after résumé. Diaper after diaper. Zoloft after Zoloft. Heartache after heartache. The calendar is stuck in February, and you’re stuck in South Dakota, and you can’t even remember what spring smells like.
One more symptom of the badlands: you think the unthinkable. Jesus did. Wild possibilities crossed his mind. Teaming up with Satan? Opting to be a dictator and not a Savior? Torching Earth and starting over on Pluto? We don’t know what he thought. We just know this: Jesus was “tempted by the devil.” Satan’s words, if but for a moment, gave him pause. He didn’t eat the bread, but he stopped long enough in front of the bakery to smell it.
Christ knows the wilderness. More than you might imagine. After all, going there was his idea. Don’t blame this episode on Satan. He didn’t come to the desert looking for Jesus. Jesus went to the badlands looking for him. “The Spirit led Jesus into the desert to be tempted by the devil” (Matt. 4:1 NCV, emphasis mine). Heaven orchestrated this date. How do we explain this?
Does the word rematch mean anything to you? For the second time in history, an unfallen mind would face the fallen angel. The Second Adam had come to succeed where the First Adam failed.
Christ dared the devil to climb into the ring. “You’ve been haunting my children since the beginning. See what you can do with me.” And Satan did. For forty days the two went toe to toe. The Son of heaven was tempted but never wavered, was struck but never struck down. He succeeded where Adam failed.
This victory, according to Paul, was a huge victory for us all. “Here it is in a nutshell: Just as one person did it wrong and got us in all this trouble with sin and death, another person did it right and got us out of it” (Rom. 5:18 THE MESSAGE). God gives you Jesus’ wilderness grade. Believe that. If you don’t, the desert days will give you a one-two punch. The right hook is the struggle. The left jab is the shame for not prevailing against it. Trust his work. And trust his Word. Don’t trust your emotions. Don’t trust your opinions. Don’t even trust your friends. Heed only the voice of God.
Again Jesus is our model. Remember how Satan taunted him? “If you are the Son of God . . .” (Matt. 4:3, 6 NCV). Why would Satan say this? Because he knew what Christ heard at the baptism: “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” (Matt. 3:17 NKJV). “Are you really God’s Son?” Satan was asking. Then came the dare—“Prove it! Prove it by doing something”:
“Tell these stones to become bread” (Matt. 4:3).
“Throw yourself down” (v. 6).
“If you will bow down and worship me, I will give you all these things” (v. 9 NCV).
What subtle seduction! Satan didn’t denounce God; he simply raised doubts about God. Is his work enough? Earthly works—like bread changing or temple jumping—were given equal billing with heavenly works. And he still attempts to shift, ever so gradually, our source of confidence away from God’s promise and toward our performance.
Jesus didn’t bite the bait. No heavenly sign was requested. He didn’t solicit a lightning bolt; he simply quoted the Bible. Three temptations. Three declarations.
“It is written . . .” (v. 4).
“It is also written . . .” (v. 7).
“It is written . . .” (v. 10).
Jesus’ survival weapon of choice was Scripture. If the Bible was enough for his wilderness, shouldn’t it be enough for ours? Don’t miss the point here. Everything you and I need for desert survival is in the Book. We simply need to heed it.
On a trip to the United Kingdom, our family visited a castle. In the center of the garden sat a maze. Row after row of shoulder-high hedges, leading to one dead end after another. Successfully navigate the labyrinth and discover the door to a tall tower in the center of the garden. Were you to look at our family pictures of the trip, you’d see four of our five family members standing on the top of the tower. Hmmm, someone is still on the ground. Guess who? I was stuck in the foliage. I just couldn’t figure out which way to go.
Ahhh, but then I heard a voice from above. “Hey, Dad.” I looked up, and it was Sara, peering through the turret at the top. “You’re going the wrong way,” she explained. “Back up and turn right.”
Do you think I trusted her? Didn’t have to. I could trust my own instincts, consult other confused tourists, sit and pout and wonder why God would let this happen to me. But do you want to know what I did? I listened. Her vantage point was better than mine. She was above the maze. She could see what I couldn’t.
Don’t you think we should do the same with God? “God is . . . higher than the heavens” (Job 22:12 NLT). “The LORD is high above all nations” (Ps. 113:4 NKJV). Can he not see what we can’t? Doesn’t he want to get us out and bring us home? Then do what Jesus did. Rely on Scripture. Doubt your doubts before you doubt your beliefs. Jesus told Satan, “Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God” (Matt. 4:4 NASB). The verb proceeds is literally “pouring out.” Its tense suggests that God is constantly and aggressively communicating with the world through his Word. Wow! God is speaking still! Hang in there. Your time in the desert will pass. Jesus’ did. “The devil left Him; and behold, angels came and began to minister to Him” (v. 11 NASB).
Till angels come to you:
Trust his Word. You need a voice to lead you out.
Trust his work. You need a friend to take your place.
Thank God you have One who will.