The second of the three platforms of redemption is that of God's chosen people wandering in a barren desert.

What is the Christian counterpart of the wandering of the Hebrews in the wilderness of Sinai? Any experienced disciple of Christ can give the answer. It is the period of transition from obedience to Satan to obedience to Christ. It is the time when we are endeavoring to master the Divine curriculum. The wilderness is the school of the Holy Spirit.

As soon as we receive Christ as our Savior we are brought out of Egypt (the authority of the spirit of the world) by the power of God. But we are not immediately in the land of promise. Rather, we find ourselves in an intermediate position.

We know from the Scriptures and we feel in ourselves that God has accomplished something for us and in us. Our life has been changed. The Scriptures have become understandable to us, although not all at once. We possess the certainty that God has called us out of the world spirit and that we have a new heart and a new spirit with which to serve Christ.

There still is much confusion, a multitude of problems, doubts, fears, unbeliefs, dilemmas, whereas the Scriptures promise peace that passes understanding, a light burden, joy such as the world cannot give, miraculous power, and rest in Christ. The transitional area, in which the Christian has been delivered from the spirit of the world but is not as yet enjoying the fullness of victory in Christ, the fullness of resurrection life promised to us by the Lord Jesus, is the Christian wilderness wandering.

The wilderness is a place of necessary lessons and experiences for us. We have much to learn about God, about ourselves, about the enemy and his ways. We learn God's laws and God's ways while we are making the transition from the life of the flesh to the life of the Spirit.

The wilderness is not an enjoyable situation in which to be, and attempts to make it enjoyable can remove us from God's will unless we are following the Lord closely.

When God imprisons us by circumstances, as He often does with His saints, we cannot escape from God's prison before God's time without breaking God's laws. To attempt to live in a paradise in the world requires that we do so at the expense of other people. But to take what we want when it brings pain to other people is not acceptable to the Lord. We will be judged and punished for our selfishness some day—as indeed we should be.

The Lord understands well that if we were brought immediately from Egypt to the land of promise we would never learn about Him because of the multitude of enjoyable circumstances and things that would then be available to us. Also, we would not be able to stand in battle for the possession and maintenance of the land.

God keeps us in difficult circumstances for a considerable period of time because of the transformation that must occur in us if we are to lay hold of the fullness of our inheritance in Christ. Every pain, every tear, every doubt is necessary. God is loving and never for one moment allows us to suffer without a reason. All things and experiences are bringing us toward an unimaginably great inheritance in and with Christ. Our task is to be patient and to follow the Holy Spirit as He administers the necessary experiences and blessings to us.

Peter describes the wilderness of testing:

Forasmuch then as Christ hath suffered for us in the flesh, arm yourselves likewise with the same mind: for he that hath suffered in the flesh hath ceased from sin; That he no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh to the lusts of men, but to the will of God. (I Peter 4:1,2)

To be continued.