SurvivorMan
Pt. 3
I. Introduction
One of the lessons that I won’t spend any time on but want to mention to you after that clip is that are times in the dry moments of your life that you have to do things you wouldn’t normally do. There is a flip side to that as well. There are times in the dry moments of your life that you will want to do things you wouldn’t normally do so you have to be on guard.
Anyone hungry this morning? How does a nice, crunchy scorpion sound?
We have been learning lessons about how to survive the dry times. I know none of you ever feel dry. I know none of you have ever felt like Job did. Remember how he described the dry times? I can’t find God anywhere? He is missing in action. I know none of you have ever felt like I have felt when it seems that my prayers only hit the ceiling and they bounce back down at me. God sometimes unreachable, heaven seems to be silent, and the wilderness seems like home. Dry times are inevitable.
Survival Lesson 1: Wilderness is not a location. It is a condition.
Survival Lesson 2: Wilderness is common to everyone.
Survival Lesson 3: If you stay in the wilderness too long you will die there.
Survival Lesson 4: The wilderness keeps our desires from outrunning our development.
Survival Lesson 5: The wilderness teaches us how to truly worship.
Survival Lesson 6: To survive the wilderness you must know where to hide.
There are three more lessons I want us to learn today. All based on the 3 great wilderness accounts in Scripture. You will remember those stories. Moses, David, and Jesus.
But before we begin those lessons I want to read to you one of the most popular wilderness or dry time passages of Scripture. We read this passage because it gives us hope in the dry moments. However, it also ties into Survival Lesson #7.
Isaiah 43:19
19Behold, I will do a new thing; now shall it spring forth; shall ye not know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert.
The great hope and promise that even in the dry moments He will provide us a way out and a way through and water to drink on the way. However, He also promises us that He is going to do something new. That is a great promise. How many of you want something new from God in your life? We all do. However, in the dry moments and in the times of desert living we must use extreme wisdom, caution and call in counsel.
Why? That is lesson #7.
II. Lessons
Survival Lesson # 7 – While in the wilderness you will receive offers you are expected to refuse.
He had experienced it before. Granted, he was much younger the first time. However, this was not a new scenario. Moses had once witnessed the extermination of his people at the hand of Pharaoh. Now God offers to finish what the Pharaoh started. Fed up with the hard headedness and heartedness of the Israelites, God informs Moses that He will kill them all and start over with Moses. The future of the nation rests on Moses’ now older shoulders again.
It seemed like the perfect setup. David has been on the run. Playing a deadly game of cat and mouse and hide and seek he had continued to escape by the hair of his chinny, chin, chin. Now, he finds himself and some of his best men, in the right place at the right time. Hidden in a cave, the hunted has the opportunity to become the hunter. Saul would never know what hit him. David could kill and become king.
Led by the Spirit, Jesus finds himself face-to-face with an easier route to what he longed to find. The desire to be worshipped by his creation could be gained by accepting the offer submitted by the enemy. No cross, no pain, no blood, no whip, no nails, no tears, no suffering, a simple leap, angels rescuing, and finally long awaited worship.
Perfect. Too good to be true. God sent. Remember He has promised He will do something new in our dry times. This must be it! In the midst of their wilderness experiences Moses, David, and Jesus each receive incredible offers and opportunities: Moses, the chance to be the father of a willing and obedient nation. David, the prospect of no longer living life as a fugitive. Jesus, the opportunity to receive the worship he deserves. However, in each case, the men flatly refused.
You too will experience wilderness. You may be there now. It is against the backdrop of the dryness, barrenness, mundane, and sameness of your daily life that the phone will ring, the letter will arrive, the forgotten contact will call, or the attractive will notice you. The offer will look good. The timing will seem right. The answer to your prayer may appear to have arrived. In your dry moment the grass always looks greener somewhere else. The problem is that we usually discover that the grass is also always greener over the septic tank. Right in the driest moment of your career the chance to take another position will be offered. Right in the most barren moment of your relationship something cute that has never given you the time of day before will walk into your life and want your attention. Right in the hardest moment of your life something new will come along and you have to remember that God will make you offers He expects you to refuse. Wait until you are in a better frame of mind to make life altering, relationship ending decisions and choices. Get godly counsel when the offer comes. More times than not in the wilderness you will have to “Just say no!”
Some offers must be refused – why location changes/condition doesn’t.
Survival Lesson # 8 – The wilderness will produce offspring in you.
Just as true as everyone goes through the wilderness it is also true that the wilderness will produce offspring in your life. The reason it is important that you know this is that you have a choice to make as you go through the dry times. You get to decide what offspring it will produce in you. You can allow the desert moment to fill your life with anger, a victim mentality, and bitterness or you can decide that I am going to let this season be a stop in my journey that produces character, discipline, and ultimately maturity. I realize that it is hard to keep a good attitude when everything seems to be going in a downward spiral. However, the truth is you can’t control life. What you can control is your attitude towards life.
If anyone had the right to have a bad attitude it was Mephibosheth. Do you remember him? He was the son of Jonathan. Saul’s grandson. A prince. Heir apparent to the throne. He grew up in the palace. Had servants and butlers at beck and call. Royalty. Up until he was 5. On the day that Saul and Jonathan were killed on the battlefield, Mephibosheth was instantly king. However, the custom of the day was that the rivals for the throne would want to kill the young boy to lay claim to the kingdom. His personal nanny or nurse knew this and grab him and ran out of the palace in order to hide him away. The problem was she had butterfingers. She wouldn’t have played running back for long because she had a problem with fumbles. She dropped the boy. Instantly a healthy little boy who loved to chase the ball, play hide and seek, and also happened to have a claim to kingship now finds himself a cripple. Lame in both legs. He goes from living in opulence to living for years in the desert. He is living in Lo-debar. The name Lo-Debar literally means “A dry, pasturless, grassless desert or a place of no word”. Ever lived there? And yet when David becomes king out of his love for Jonathan he asks if there is anyone he can bless. A servant tells him about Mephibosheth. Remember, David knew what it was like to try to live in the dry place. So out of grace and kindness David invites Mephibosheth to live the rest of his days in David’s house. But if you go and read the account in 2 Samuel 9 almost as an afterthought right at the end of the chapter the writer says and Mephibosheth has a son named Mica. In other words, out of the desert moment Mephibosheth has offspring. He has Mica. Mica means “God-Likeness.” The desert can and will produce in your God-Likeness/Christ-Likeness – if you will allow it.
You can either get bitter or you can embrace this journey and get better.
Survival Lesson # 9 – Bitter Ain’t Bad
You will experience some bitter things in the dry moments. Death, forsaken, attacks, hurt, brokenness, fatigue, lean times, lies. Dry times bring us face to face with some of life toughest circumstances. In fact, I know that some of you have had some really bad things happen to you. You have lost loved ones that you still mourn. You have lost possessions that you continue to cry over. You have lost relationships that you still crave. Hot times. Tough losses. But can I tell you from Moses’ journey into the wilderness that bitter ain’t always bad!
We discover this truth in:
Exodus 15:22-25
22And Moses led Israel onward from the Red Sea, and they went out into the wilderness of Shur; and they went three days in the wilderness, and found no water. 23And when they came to Marah, they could not drink of the waters of Marah, for they were bitter: therefore the name of it was called Marah. 24And the people murmured against Moses, saying, What shall we drink? 25An he cried unto Jehovah; And Jehovah showed him a tree, and he cast it into the waters, and the waters were made sweet. There he made for them a statute and an ordinance, and there he proved them;
The chosen people of God are facing a new era and a new day as a people. They have just gone from being slaves in Egypt to desert travelers under the leadership of Moses. Now three days into their first march they find themselves in a desperate situation. They have no water. If we believe that God has directed Moses up until this juncture, we must also believe that he purposely directed the people to the springs of Marah. He did. The Word tells us he brought them to this location for testing or proving (vs. 25). Unfortunately they failed the test. Rather than trusting God and drinking the water (remember it was bitter not deadly), regardless of how it tasted or affected them physically, they grumbled and complained. Why did God want them to drink of those bitter waters? It is believed that the waters at Marah were bitter because they contained high levels of magnesium and calcium. The high content of magnesium would have acted as a laxative when consumed.
I am completely convinced that God desired to use the waters of Marah to clean the Egyptian residue out of his people. There were diseases in Egypt (frogs, death, boils). But there was also a second purpose for coming to Marah. Magnesium and calcium, when combined, form the basis of a drug called Dolomite. Professional athletes who perform in the sun use Dolomite. It is basically a muscle control drug to be used in extremely hot weather to control spasms. Marah was intended to be a place of purification and preparation. However, the people refused to drink.
Not everything bitter is bad. As tough as what we are facing or have faced may be it can be an instrument used by God to purify and prepare you. God is famous for making a way out of no way, for using bad things as catapults for greatness, and for taking painful things and turning them into platforms of ministry. Don’t refuse to drink. Just because it is bitter doesn’t mean it is bad. It may actually be part of the plan. It may actually help rather than hurt! Does it taste bad? You bet. Hold your nose while you swallow, but swallow. Swallow your anger and your pride and allow the bitter to purify you and prepare you. If you fail to drink you fail the test and you fail to be prepared.
III. Close
Close:
Pray for those have hard decisions to make.
Pray for those who have either had or are facing bitter situations.
