The chronicle of events from the exodus from Egypt to the entrance into Canaan is an extraordinary illustration. These incidents of Middle East history were designed by the Lord to portray the Christian experience of redemption.

We Christians by faith and by the action of water baptism make our "exodus" from the world (Egypt). We do not make our exodus from the earth but from the world system—the present evil age, which is dominated by Satan. The baptismal water is a "Red Sea" to us.

After coming across the "Red Sea" (being baptized in water into the death and resurrection of Christ) we find ourselves after a period of time, not in any promised land of power, glory, and excellent fruits but in a "waste howling wilderness," in an uninhabited desert, spiritually speaking.

The "wilderness" experience is the school of the Holy Spirit and a sore trial to the disciples of the Lord. They forsake the world, the flesh, and the devil. They begin to follow Christ. They had been told that once they became a Christian their life from that time forward would be filled with joy.

God would be real to them. His will would be plain to them, a golden highway set with diamonds leading to the stars. They would have daily fellowship with Christ and the hovering Presence of the Holy Spirit. Their peace would be eternal and would pass their understanding, so great would it be. Thus it may have been for a season.

Then the scene changed!

No explanation from the Lord! The joy leaves. God seems far away and His will impossible to find. Christ remains silent and the Holy Spirit is remote. Instead of perfect peace there is anxiety, confusion, uncertainty. The Christian life becomes boring, a drudgery. The strain of patiently obeying Christian doctrine is almost intolerable.

Day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year. While there are periodic signs that the Lord is aware of what is taking place, such as answers to prayer, occasional leadings, blessings sprinkled here and there, the daily routine has become one of day-to-day laboring under the burning sun of problems and difficulties rather than the promised rest and refreshing under copious rains of the Holy Spirit.

Peter teaches us:

Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations: That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ: (I Peter 1:6,7)

Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you: But rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ's sufferings; that, when his glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy. (I Peter 4:12,13)

Paul, too, was acquainted with the wilderness of trouble:

For we would not, brethren, have you ignorant of our trouble which came to us in Asia, that we were pressed out of measure, above strength, insomuch that we despaired even of life: But we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which raiseth the dead: (II Corinthians 1:8,9)

In the above passage Paul was describing the Christian discipleship. As was the case with the Israelites, much wilderness wandering must precede our entrance into the land of promise.

To be continued.