In the Desert with God

IN THESE DAYS of hurry and pressure, we find ourselves face to face with a terrible danger. It is this: no time to be alone with God. The world is running fast in these last days; we live in what is called "the age of progress." We must keep pace with the times, so the world says. But this spirit has not confined itself to the world only; it is also found among the saints of God. And what is the result? The result is no time to be alone with God, and this is immediately followed by no inclination to be alone with God. And what next? Surely the question does not need an answer. Can there be any condition more deplorable than the condition of a child of God who has no inclination to be alone with his Father?
How many of God's dear children nowadays have picked up the "spirit of the age," and how many Christians are pushed into service for God, or thrust themselves into it, who have had no "apprenticeship" —no desert training. They have taken a terrible shortcut into the front of the battle, for that shortcut has cut off entirely the school of God!
Examples How different this is from what meets our eye in the pages of our Father's Book. If it is Abraham we look at, we find him sweetly communing with his God, far away in the plains of Mamre sitting in his tent door in the heat of the day (Gen. 18:1). At the same time, his worldly nephew is keeping pace with the "spirit of the age" in ungodly Sodom.
If it is Joseph we consider, we find him at least two full years in God's school—although it were Egypt's dungeon—before he stepped up to teach the senators wisdom (Psa. 105:22), and "save much people alive." Gen. 50:20.
If we read of Moses, we find him at God's school in the backside of the desert (Ex. 3:1). Then, but not till then, he appears publicly as the deliverer of the people of God.
If it is David we look at, the wilderness for him is the school of God. There he slays the lion and the bear (1 Sam. 17:34-36), when no human eye was near. He gets the victory alone with God. Fresh from God's school he steps before the thousands of Israel, and while all Israel fearfully follows Saul, the people's man, he is one who does not. He is the one who has been at God's school in the wilderness alone with Him. Surely it is no wonder, then, that the Lord wrought a great victory in Israel that day!
We might multiply instances from God's Word. We might tell of Elijah, a bold witness for God, who was longer alone with his God than standing in the place of public testimony. He found the solitude of Cherith (1 Kings 17:3), and the quiet seclusion of Zarephath (v. 9), a needed training before he delivered the messages of God.
We might tell of John the Baptist who was in the deserts till the day of his showing unto Israel (Luke 1:80). Or we might tell of the great Apostle Paul, whose journey to Arabia seems to have been for no other purpose than to be at God's school in the desert (Gal. 1:17). But from the instances we have already pointed out, nothing can be clearer than this, that if you and I are to be of any use to God down here—if we would glorify Him on the earth—we must have time to be alone with Him.
Whoever or whatever is put off, God must not be put off. We must have time, every one of us, to be alone with God. It is in the closet that the "lions" and the "bears" must be slain. It is in the secret presence of God, with no one near but Him, that the spiritual Agags must be brought out and hewn in pieces before the Lord in Gilgal (1 Sam. 15:33).