1152. Wilderness Wanderings

Wilderness Wanderings

"But with many of them God was not well pleased: for they were overthrown in the wilderness" (1Co_10:5).

There was eleven days' journey from Horeb unto Kadesh-barnea, but the children of Israel were two and one-half years in making the journey. Even then they were turned back for forty more years of almost aimless wanderings. They roamed about, here and there, but they never reached the promised Canaan.

How many believers are now wandering about! They are like children on a hobby horse–they make no progress, manifest no growth in grace, show no advancing unto the measure of the stature of Christ. They never grow in grace, nor attain unto full-grown men in Christ Jesus. While they ought to be men they are still babes; while they ought to be teachers, they have need that some one teach them again the first principles of the doctrines of Christ.

For shame! Years of Christian life and no development! They are singing still, if they sing at all, of "the day that fixed their choice," but they are never singing of new visions and of new victories in their Christian experiences.

What a grief this must be to the Lord! A saint, saved, but with no ambition to press on toward the mark for the prize of the "high calling" in Christ Jesus. Are Christians to dwell forever on the same plane of action and of growth? Are Christians never to lay aside the doctrines of the beginnings in Christ, and press on to perfection?

Some believers, after years of Christian life, are camping still in the wilderness. They know no more of Christ and of His Word than they knew when they were saved; they know no more of the power of prayer or of the manifestations of the Holy Spirit than they first knew.

Wandering in the wilderness, unhappy and unsatisfied, when they should be dwelling in Canaan and living on the fat of the land. Let us never stop until we can sing:

"I've reached the land of corn and wine,

And all its riches freely mine;

Here shines undimmed one blissful day,

For all my night has passed away.

"The Saviour comes and walks with me,

And sweet communion here have we;

He gently leads me with His hand,

For this is Heaven's border-land."

Autor: R.E. NEIGHBOUR