Skip to main content

The Deserts of the Divine


There is something divine about the desert. There in golden sand and regal rocks a person encounters real trust in God. I believe there are two deserts, one is barren and full of dead earth, the other is the sea which is beautiful and full of dead water. It is these two places that man and woman is tested. There on either the sand or the sea, our souls either end up saved or shipwrecked.

The Wilderness or Wildness of the deserts and deep seas is where God meets those called out to follow Him. It was in the Wildness that Moses met God in Midian, at Mount Sinai. (Exodus 2"11-25, Acts 7:30). It was through the Red Sea, that Moses led the Israelites to the Land of God's Promise. (Exodus 14:21, Exodus 15:22). Moses was even saved from death by being sent via the Nile River by his Mother. Here in the great Prophet and teacher of the Law, we see a life shaped by the desert and seas, which are the hands and fingers of the Almighty.

In the Wilderness the Savior, Jesus Christ spent his time for forty days, fulfilling symbolically the forty years that Moses and Israelites wandered the Wilderness. Jesus in the desert was tested by the devil (Matthew 4:1-11, Luke 4:2) and resisted. It is from the Wild that our Lord came and began His Ministry that culminated at Calvary on the cross. Jesus also explored the desert of the sea of Galilee, there twice he faces storms with his Disciples, once in the ship asleep  and rising to rebuke the waves (Matthew 8:23-27) and the second time walking out on the water and calling to Peter to join him on that watery surface. There Peter failed because of unbelief and fear. (Matthew 14: 22-33).

The Seedless Land and the Sea are the threshing floors of our faith. There God strips us so that we may put our security in our Lord alone. Trust is tested there in the treacherous terrain and tempests. If we fear, we will fall and become dust or drown. But if we trust and have faith in Jesus Christ, we shall make it from the desert to a deeper relationship and reliance on our Lord and survive the storm.

Many want to avoid the journey through the desert or sailing across the deep sea. But if we do not venture into the Wilderness of the Dry and the Water, we shall not be baptized; we will miss the opportunity for the Lord to purge us of the poisons in our souls and come to a place of perfect trust and peace in Him. As Christians we should hunger for the Wildness and work towards getting to the desert and depths. There in the baked sun or the beating seas, we find Jesus. There in the arid country we find Christ teaching us to resist our flesh and the devil. There in the parched land we purge self and deny it as He commanded (Matthew 16:24). Then on the ocean we are in open battle, a battle of fear versus faith. The waves being every trial, traitor, tribulation, test, and terror.

The Desert and Deep Sea are divine because the Divine One waits us there to do that which will bring our selfish nature to complete dryness and death in the desert and a deeper relationship with Jesus in depths of the Sea of His Love and Trust. Remember that the desolate desert or the deep depths will not destroy you, but they will destroy the part of you that is self sufficient and relies on your own strength. There in the sand and sea our self is broken until it acknowledges that only the Savior is God and sufficient to save us.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Israel’s Conquest of Canaan: The Nephilim and Giants

  Christianity Today asserts that the conquest of Canaan can be a “stumbling block” for believers. This probably is because of a foolish idea of comparing it to a modern conquest happening in our world. The truth is that God had Israel conquer Canaan because it was ruled by evil giants, “We saw the Nephilim there (the descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim). We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them.” (Numbers 13:33). These are Anakim or Nephilim, the children of angels and human women, “When man began to multiply on the face of the land and daughters were born to them, the sons of God (angels) saw that the daughters of man were attractive. And they took as their wives any they chose. Then the LORD said, “My Spirit shall not abide in man forever, for he is flesh: his days shall be 120 years.” The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of man and they bore children to them. The...
Post a Comment
Read more

Dispensationalism

John Nelson Darby (1800-1882) was a man who did two things, he took 70th week of the Book of Daniel and stretched out to the End Times, and he was the father of  Dispensationalism , a belief system that God dispenses different peoples with separate blessings and covenants. According to Darb'ys doctrine of Dispensationalism, God dispenses different covenants. There are total of seven dispensations that divide the history of man: I. Dispensation of Innocence (prior to the Fall, "Do not east of the Fruit of Good and Eve, Eden), II. Dispensation of Conscience ( You must assuage guilt and sin with blood sacrifices.) III. Dispensation of Human Government (Multiply and Subdue the world, example the Tower of Babel Gen 11:1-9, and Genesis 1:28). IV. Dispensation of the Promise (Dwell in Canaan, Jerusalem) V. Dispensation of the Law ("Obey the Law of Moses and the Prophets"). VI. Dispensation of Grace (The Church, Jesus Christ has come...
Post a Comment
Read more

Jesus’ Name in Aramaic

There has been a trend to render Jesus’ name Hebrew, יֵשׁוּעַ , Yeshua. The problem is neither Christ nor his apostles, nor the Jews in 30-33 A.D. spoke Hebrew, they spoke Aramaic. A ramaic is the oldest language on earth and was the language Jesus spoke. In fact, the oldest Old Testament is the Septuagint a Greco translation around 132 B.C.E. (165 Years Before Christ)that was translated from Aramaic. The Masoretic Text, The Hebrew Old Testament most Bibles use, dates from 7th to 10th Century A.D. (Medieval Times).  This translation does not cross reference with the words of Christ in the New Testament which are Aramaic and Koine Greek.  If the Aramaic was what Jesus spoke, then by what name would have been called? Jesus’ name in Aramaic is Isho or Eesho, spelled ܝܫܘܥ . That is the name of our Lord in Aramaic! He would have heard his name in this dialect, “Hail Isho or Eesho!” as well as the Greek, Ἰ ησο ῦ ς , Iesous.  Aramaic is disappearing, only a few peop...
Post a Comment
Read more