The Wilderness: Part II
by Pastor H. Leon Ben-Ezra
Sermon originally preached September 21, 2003Passage: Revelation 12.13-14
We return this week to the Scripture theme of the wilderness that we looked at last week. This week we return, briefly, to one aspect of the wilderness, the wilderness as the place of deprivation. Last week we choose the right fork in the road which led from the theme of the wilderness as a place deprivation to the theme of the wilderness as a place of testing and thus knowing God. This week we’re going to take the left fork. We’ll let the theme of deprivation in the wilderness lead us to a different thought. It is my sincere desire that you will be greatly blessed by this. I was.
Last week we saw Israel being deprived in the wilderness. First, there was the problem of water. Then followed the problem of food. And instead of the vegetables that Israel longed for, they got manna. I made the point that John’s vision in our text drew upon this to make the point that we, the Church, are also in the wilderness. We also experience deprivations of different sorts. There are some things that God removes from us or even denies us altogether. And I wasn’t talking about evil things. I made the point last week that God sometimes deprives us of good things, things that we have good reason to desire, things that seem to us to be necessary. That is the situation of the Church as it journeys through the wilderness.
Now, we’re ready for what lies beyond the left fork. What I want you to see this week is that while the wilderness is a place of deprivation, it leads to the Promised Land as a place of abundance. You’ll remember that the manna that fed Israel for forty years stopped once they left the wilderness and entered the Promised Land. Why was that? It was no longer needed. Israel had entered the land that flowed with milk and honey. The people were no longer deprived. There was an abundance of food in Canaan.
Now, that thought leads to this very practical question. What will happen to us once we leave the wilderness, the place of deprivation? What is our Promised Land going to be like? What will we experience in heaven, in the age to come? Here’s the answer that I want you to take home and think about. Jesus is going to pay you back for all that He deprived you of. I use the language of being paid back purposely. I do it because that idea is in the Scriptures. Listen to one example.
Slaves, obey your earthly masters with fear and trembling, with a sincere heart, as you would Christ, not by the way of eye-service, as people-pleasers, but as servants of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart, rendering service with a good will as to the Lord and not to man, knowing that whatever good anyone does, this he will receive back from the Lord, whether he is a slave or free. Ephesians 6:5-8
The word translated ‘receive back’ is also elsewhere translated ‘reward’ and even ‘recompense’. Now, bear in mind the context. While what he writes applies to all, Paul is directly addressing slaves. And what have they been deprived of? Freedom. Many of them had tyrants for masters, men who could decide to kill them at a whim. What is Paul saying to them? ‘Live faithfully as slaves. I know that it’s hard but if you do, Jesus will pay you back for it.’ For these, the Promised Land will be a compensation for years of suffering as slaves.
Where did Paul get this idea? It’s throughout the Scriptures. But one clear place is the life of Jesus. One place we see it is in Hebrews 12. [See also Philippians 2.5-11 for another example.]
… look[ ] to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Hebrews 12:2
Why did Jesus endure the horrors of the cross? Why did He submit to its deprivations? It was for the joy set before Him. For Jesus, the abundance of the Promised Land included being seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Do you see the pattern? We are encouraged to respond faithfully to the deprivations of the wilderness because the rewards, the compensation, of the Promised Land is coming.
I am going to do something now that I do not think that I have ever done. I am going to correct in this sermon something that I said in a previous sermon. I preached to you some weeks back about the rewards of heaven. I told you that the rewards of heaven will be a deeper experience of Christ. There is something wrong with that. I still believe it to be true, but it is an incomplete answer. Having more of Christ is still the chief reward of faithfulness, but there is more. Listen to this Psalm.
When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion, we were like those who dream. Then our mouth was filled with laughter, and our tongue with shouts of joy; then they said among the nations, "The Lord has done great things for them." The Lord has done great things for us; we are glad. Restore our fortunes, O Lord, like streams in the Negeb! Those who sow in tears shall reap with shouts of joy! He who goes out weeping, bearing the seed for sowing, shall come home with shouts of joy, bringing his sheaves with him. Psalm 126
The Psalmist first reflects on a time in Israel’s history when God had restored what He had removed from His people. The Psalmist then utters a pray. ‘Do it again. You have deprived us. Lord. Restore to us also what You have taken away. Restore our fortunes, Lord.’ Then comes a promise. Life now, in the wilderness, is hard. The work of living faithfully here is filled with weeping and tears. But the time of harvest is coming. Then we shall shout with joy. Then God will have restored what He has taken away.
Those who sow in tears shall reap with shouts of joy! He who goes out weeping, bearing the seed for sowing, shall come home with shouts of joy, bringing his sheaves with him.
Another place you can see the same theme is at the end of Job where God restored what He had taken away. [Job 42.10 ff.] What is heaven for us? What is our Promised Land going to be like? It will be a time of restoring those things that we were deprived of during our time in the wilderness. [There are other pictures of the same thing where mourning and deprivation is changed to joy and abundance. See, for example, Jeremiah 31.12 ff.]
Here’s the point. Many of you have experienced deprivation from God in the wilderness. You have had hopes that have been dashed, dreams that were shattered, expectations that were never met. You understand what life in the wilderness is like. The promise of the Scriptures is that Jesus will make it up to you. To the extent that you have suffered His deprivations, to that extent and beyond He will fill you. The good and proper and legitimate desires that were never satisfied here will be fulfilled there to overflowing. This is how we make sense of a promise like this one:
The Lord is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth. He fulfills the desire of those who fear him; he also hears their cry and saves them. Psalm 145:18-19
When God saves He doesn’t do a halfway job. He even satisfies the yearning of our souls, yearnings that He has put there. If He does not fulfill those yearnings here then He will most certainly fulfill them there. And so, the hymn writer was correct. I wondered about this but it’s true. ‘Be still, my soul: thy Jesus can repay from His own fullness all He takes away.’
Do you see what this means? It is a very powerful thought. It provides hope. Life in the wilderness is hard. What do you tell yourself when you are forced to deal with another affliction, another deprivation? Do you tell yourself, ‘Even this is part of God’s good plan for my life’? Yes! Do you tell yourself, ‘If this is part of living faithfully for Jesus, then I gladly do it’? Yes! But you also tell yourself, ‘Be still, my soul: thy Jesus can repay from His own fullness all He takes away.’ This is a hope that does not minimize the hardships here. Tears are often appropriate. And yet, it is a hope that can lift you up so that you can continue on your journey through this wasteland.
Let me deal with a couple of misunderstandings of what I have said and then I want to draw out some of the implications of this theme. There may be some who will hear this and then say something like, ‘Talking about being paid back later sounds wrong. It sounds mercenary like we’re in this for the goodies. This can’t be right.’ This is the right question to ask. If anyone says, ‘Come to Jesus for the goodies’ that person has missed the primary point of the Gospel. The appeal to come to Christ finds its primary basis in the fact that God deserves the worship of all of His creatures and that we all have failed to do that. That is what our sin is. We worship the creature instead of the Creator. But forgiveness for such a high crime against God is offered through Jesus. And the goal of such a forgiveness is that we might be restored to our proper goal of worshipping God with all that we are. The primary appeal of the Gospel is God’s honor and worthiness. But it is Jesus who says,
Behold, I am coming soon, bringing my recompense with me, to repay everyone for what he has done. Revelation 22:12
The reward is not our primary motive for faithfully serving our Lord. But it is offered as an aid to help us to be faithful servants. We should use it.
Now, there may be some who are thinking, ‘This is all well and good but it’s only dealing with being deprived in some spiritual way. Martyrdom counts and being persecuted for the Gospel. But the daily stuff of life is in a different category. So, what good is this anyway?’ Think back to Israel. What did God deprive them of? Water. Food. How ‘spiritual’ were these things? The key is not the ‘spirituality’ of what you have been deprived of. The key is how you respond when God deprives you of something, however mundane that something may be. It could be that God has deprived you of a job that you could really sink your teeth into, or a body that works well, or the deep enjoyment of what could have been a close relationship but never was. Don’t worry if it qualifies as ‘spiritual’ enough. Focus on responding faithfully to the situation. And part of what will help in that is knowing that the faithful will be rewarded.
Now a couple of implications of all of this. For one thing, this theme gives a reason for joy, even in the midst of deprivation. Joy is that optimistic spirit that we can have as we deal with life. And so, we can say, ‘Yes, this is hard. But I’m on my way to the Promised Land. And I know that when I get there Jesus will wipe away every tear that I shed. I know that He will fulfill every desire that is now deprived me. My mourning now will be changed to gladness. This is just part of the journey there and I know that it’s worth it.’ Believing this part of the Gospel results in a joy that the pagans will not understand. Then they’ll ask and we’ll be able to tell them about Jesus.
Believing this part of the Gospel will also help us deal with the temptation of the trinkets of this world. You’ve seen the bumper sticker that reads, ‘Whoever dies with the most toys wins.’ That is the myth of our age. And the basis is clear. This life is all you have so you had better enjoy it while you can. That is a lie of Satan. We know that this is not all that there is. In fact, this doesn’t come close to what real life is all about. Life enjoyed to the fullest is the life of the Promised Land, and that comes later. Doing without here is okay. The real action is yet to come and that life, and all that goes with it, will never end. Don’t be fooled by all the allurements of the world. They cannot last. They cannot satisfy. And they can so easily be a distraction from the real purpose of this life: to live for Christ whatever that includes.
One last thought. Our time in the wilderness is going to seem long. For most of us, the Promised Land is still far in the distance. What we feel now are the deprivations, the day in and day out battles of this life. What is needed is the steadfastness of hope. Survival in the wilderness will require patient endurance as we slowly make our way to heaven. So the old exhortation fits. We need to wait on God to act. We wait in hope. One day He will usher us into the Promised Land. But until then we labor here in the wilderness, but we labor in hope. There is only one way that we will be able to do this, to continue faithful in the wilderness looking in hope to the Promised Land. We need to give ourselves to prayer. The Scripture is clear. There is a reward. Jesus will recompense His own. But we will not be able to hold onto that great hope unless we give ourselves to prayer. We need the grace of God to continue as faithful disciples in this barren land. If you do this, if you pray, then the grace will be there to sustain you on your journey. Then when you finally get to the Promised Land what glory that will be.
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