by Walter Beuttler
Moses prayed, “Show me now Thy way that I may know Thee.” I have also mentioned that God, in His Word, complains on repeated occasions the lack of His people knowing and understanding His ways. In Jeremiah, for instance, He says, “They have not known My ways.”
I realize that a subject, like “The ways of the Lord in adversity,” will not appeal to the young, as well as it will to the older. You can be sure the day will come when you will be older, when the days of adversity will come your way, more than they are likely to do, now.
There is a story in the newspaper of an old couple. She is 76, and he is 80 something. A pathetic story of an old lonely couple living in a trailer, both of them arthritics; one needing the other; spending more money for doctors and medicines, than for food; worried about the future, sitting all day Sunday alone; sitting in the dark by night to save electric. Apparently, their children do not particularly bother, though they live not too far away. You do not know what might come your way.
The other day I was watching a news program on TV about the government’s effort to get people to cut down, or quit smoking. Now that the statistics are in, smoking has increased by 5%. They found that the younger people just do not care. So they looked into the reason for it. They find that the government can say all they like, “cigarettes kill,” or give them all sorts of warnings, the youngsters feel, “That is far away, that is for the older; we are not old, we are young.” “We are living now; we are not living in the future.” They find that the youngsters just pay no attention. It’s too far away. Now they are trying a different tactic.
But you can be sure that thousands of those youngsters in the decades to come will lie in hospitals writhing in pain. They say lung cancer is one of the most painful deaths, and listening to the doctor’s verdict as to its cause – smoking. Their day will come. Now they laugh at the government’s efforts; laugh at the risks; want their fun; they are living now, but the years have a way of marching on inexorably, and all of the young will eventually get there.
We recognize that, of course, but we are apt to ignore it. I would suggest to you, and I am speaking to the younger here now, as there are quite a few here: There will be different times, coming. They have a way of arriving, sometimes very unexpected, far earlier than we had ever thought. We need a fortification of divine truth in our hearts of the knowledge of His ways, the knowledge of God in those situations, so we do not fall by the wayside, fail and quit the faith, but go through with God.
Therefore, we need a better understanding of the way of the Lord in the wilderness. “The wilderness! Who wants the wilderness?” Well, nobody, but a lot of things are unwanted and come just the same, with stark reality.
I have been in Bible school many years, and remember many of the situations that some of the students had gone through, when they came to Bible school. I remember one girl, just before she came; her Father shot her Mother, then himself, and she was left alone. She must have been about 18. All of a sudden, her life was totally changed.
It is amazing what situations people go through. I was at the Rock Church recently. An old, old lady came up to me right after the morning service. That poor soul wept. She said,
“Brother Beuttler, you were talking about me.” What she meant was, “You talked about the very thing, the very situation in which I needed help at this very time.” And there are dozens of others in this church, in a similar situation.
“And the children of Israel took their journeys out of the wilderness of Sinai; and the cloud rested in the wilderness of Paran.” Numbers 10:12
You will recognize that here, you have the leading of the glory of God, the cloud. This was the manifest presence of God. You have the leading of the manifest presence of God, leading His people from one wilderness into another. Sometimes we are barely out of one situation, and breath a sigh of relief, and give a testimony in church, and tell the neighbors all about it, when lo and behold, here comes another one. And you say, “Well, when it rains, it pours.”
What do I mean by wilderness? That is difficult to define. In fact, I cannot define it, not in our sense, but for a general descriptive statement. There are times when we get into a situation of whatever nature through whatever apparent cause; a situation in which you do not know where you are at; whether you are coming or going; whether you are growing or shrinking; where you do not know what it is all about; confused, lost as to direction; at a loss to know what to do. You can be in a situation where you must act; you must make a decision, and you do not know which way to decide.
Now this is a predicament! You cannot understand what God is doing, why He is doing it, or why is He not doing what you think He should be doing. And you say, “I just cannot understand this, I do not know where I am at.”
You do not know what to do. You go to the phone, if you are foolish enough, and call up Aunt Susie to see what she thinks. She will tell you! She might even tell you, “You are a hypocrite.”
You take a chance when you ask people what they think. “Have you examined yourself? Are you sure you are in the faith. Is there a monkey in the woodpile or something?”
“What do you think?” Well, if you shop around by way of a telephone for the answer that you are looking for, which in most cases, people want to hear what they like to believe, whether it is right or wrong. Sooner or later you will find somebody, if for no other reason: that one fool will always find a bigger one to admire him.
I have found that there is nothing like going to God. And we are going to go to God today. We are going to go to His Word, and learn some things about experiences in situations which, on the surface, might appear to be the very negation of His promises; utterly contrary to what we had expected, or what others expect – where you are dumbfounded, puzzled, discombobulated and don’t know what on earth to do.
Let us see what God has to say. “You mean that God leads us, through things like this. Well, yes, but I wonder why?” We will find out from the Book. First of all, the wilderness is a place full of perils. We are using Paul’s words here in II Corinthians, the idea being: when we go through these places, there are dangers, perils, pitfalls that we need to avoid.
“In journeys often (some of us know something about that), in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by mine own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness (Did you catch it? There are perils in the wilderness.)
But, if we are wise, we will enter anyway. Know that the Lord will not leave you there alone, nor let you down.
You can trust His Word and guidance.