by Kevin Burton
To get a picture of what Christ has done for us, it helps to define the word “wilderness.”
Merriam-Webster says wilderness is “a tract or region uncultivated and uninhabited by human beings.” That kind of wilderness may be wild, but it still has its potential. It just hasn’t been tended to by humans.
The picture of wilderness we see today also carries with it the notion of hopelessness; not a place untouched by man, but a place untouched by God.
“In my mind’s eye I see a howling wilderness, a great and terrible desert, like the Sahara,” writes Allistair Begg, speaker with Truth For Life Ministries. “I perceive nothing in it to relieve the eye; all around I am wearied with a vision of hot and arid sand, on which are ten thousand bleaching skeletons of wretched men who have expired in anguish, having lost their way in the pitiless waste.”
“What an appalling sight! How horrible! A sea of sand without boundary and without an oasis, a cheerless graveyard for a forlorn race.”
“But look and wonder!” Begg writes. “All of a sudden, springing from the scorching sand I see a well-known plant; and as it grows it buds, the bud expands—it is a rose, and at its side a lily bows its modest head—and, miracle of miracles, as the fragrance of those flowers is diffused, the wilderness is transformed into a fruitful field, and all around it blossoms abundantly like the glory of Lebanon, the excellency of Carmel and Sharon.”
“Do not call it Sahara; call it Paradise,” Begg writes. “Do not refer to it any longer as the valley of death, for where the skeletons lay bleaching in the sun, a resurrection is proclaimed, and up spring the dead, a mighty army, full of life immortal. Jesus is that well-known plant, and His presence makes everything new.”
These contrasting pictures of life with and without Christ are not seen with the human eye as we wander from Monday through Sunday and back again, over and over. Christians and non-Christians alike are subject to what Shakespeare called the “slings and arrows” of life. In the physical sense, the condition of one appears to be similar to if not exactly the same as, the other.
But this is not so. You have to understand the spiritual.
The natural man is wholly unqualified to answer that most common of questions, “how are you doing?”
The Bible says “There is a way that seems right to a man, But its end is the way of death” (Prov. 16:25 NKJV).
Paul Simon says “We’re workin’ our jobs, collect our pay. Believe we’re gliding down the highway when in fact we’re slip slidin’ away.”
This is a global spiritual truth. You may ignore it for a while, but you will not escape it.
But oh the wonder of that spiritual lifeline through Christ! That lifeline is available to all. Pray to God and accept salvation through faith in Jesus Christ and his substitutionary death on the cross. You will see friend, how in your life as in this post, that joy will be the last word.
“ I can see you, dear reader, cast out, an infant, unclothed, unwashed, defiled with your own blood, and left to be food for beasts of prey,” Begg writes. “But look, a jewel has been thrown into your bosom by a divine hand, and for its sake you have been pitied and guarded by divine providence; you are washed and cleansed from your defilement; you are adopted into heaven’s family; the fair seal of love is upon your forehead, and the ring of faithfulness is on your hand—you are now a prince to God, though once an orphan and a castaway.”
“Cherish then the matchless power and grace that changes deserts into gardens and makes the barren heart sing for joy.”
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