In the Desert

In Exodus 3.1 we read, Now Moses kept the flock of Jethro, his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the backside of the desert and came to the mountain of God, even to Horeb. I will pause here to say, here is the man Moses, brought up with all the privileges of the house of Pharaoh, fully trained and schooled in the best learning institutions of Egypt, a man of culture, a man of promise, a man of distinction, a man with a future, and astoundingly, years later, we find this great man walking behind a flock of smelly, undisciplined sheep. He doesn't even own the sheep, they belong to his father-in-law, Moses, who's only a common day laborer, working for food and board, and no great future or enterprise before him.

He is a man in the desert, both physically and spiritually. Maybe you're a pastor, and when you first began your ministry, you were full of ambition, energy, and fire. You had big dreams of a big church with a big influence, not only within your denomination, but impacting your community.

You were going to be the man to turn things upside down, but things happened that turned you and your dreams upside down. The fire gradually burned down to a flicker. The impact you hoped for was never realized, and here you are, going through the motions of ministry with your little flock comprised of sheep and goats, butting heads with one another.

You're like the man Moses here. You are in the desert. It's dry.

It's barren. And you wonder how in the world did you ever end up here, of all places, when there was so much promise to begin with? I like the words of F.J. Hegel in regard to Moses here in the desert. Hegel said, For forty years, on the lonely slopes of Midian, the fiery Moses eschooled.

There were graves, if I may so speak, scattered all over the mountainside, where hope after hope was buried, until at last self went down in utter annihilation. If there's any light in this dark background, friend, it's found in those last comments by Hegel. Moses is a man emptied of self, but hungry, hungry for an experience of God.

There's great hope for the one who loses all his self-reliance, a man purged by circumstances beyond his control. Mount Horeb is an interesting place in itself. John Calvin took the view that Sinai and Horeb were the same mountain, with the eastern side of the mountain being called Sinai, and the western side being called Horeb.

Whether Moses is here on the eastern side, or the western side, matters little. What matters is what transpires next. We read in verse 2, And the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a flame of fire, out of the midst of a bush.

And he looked, and behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed. We see a man transfixed on a bush, just an ordinary desert bush, but something extraordinary is taking place. Moses is about to have an encounter with God, and his life will never be the same.

Moses lived to be a hundred and twenty years old, and his life is divided into three forty-year periods. Notice this, friends. The first forty years of Moses's life in Egypt is covered by 15 verses of scripture.

The next 40 years of Moses's life on the backside of the Midian desert is covered by only 10 verses of scripture. But the last 40 years of Moses's life after he had an encounter with God is covered by approximately 4,252 verses of scripture. Surely this clearly demonstrates that the significance of a life lived for God occurs after an encounter with God and an experience of Him.

As a revival scholar, I stand amazed at different revivals in history, particularly what God did with Duncan Campbell after the age of 53. Duncan Campbell was a minister in Scotland who for 18 years served in a very uneventful pastorate. He was upstairs one morning in his study preparing a sermon on the Holy Spirit for an upcoming minister's conference when he heard his 16-year-old daughter happily singing a hymn downstairs in the kitchen.

He slowly walked down the stairs and asked her, Lassie, why are you singing so happily at six o'clock in the morning? She replied, Oh, Daddy, I just spent an hour with Jesus. Oh, Daddy, isn't Jesus wonderful? Duncan Campbell slowly walked back up the stairs as if he had a knife sticking in his back. He thought to himself, Here am I preparing a sermon on the Holy Spirit to address the minister's conference, and I can truly say that right now Jesus isn't wonderful to me.

And this broke him. He threw himself down on the floor of his study, and for the next four hours he wrestled with God, determined not to rise nor eat nor sleep until he actually met God. His own family was so concerned they thought he'd lost his mind.

There he was rolling around on the wood floor in such agony as soul, but what transpired from this was a changed man. After this, he quit the pastorate on a leap of faith with a large family to provide for, and he joined the faith mission as a missionary. And what happened next is akin to a Mount Sinai experience for the next four years from 1949 to 1952.

It was spanning glorious revival on the Isle of Lewis in the Hebrides. I knew a minister who knew Duncan Campbell well, and I asked him one time to describe to me in one sentence how he would sum up Duncan Campbell. And after a long reflection, he thought about it, and he replied, Duncan Campbell was a ordinary man who had had an extraordinary experience of God.

Do you know what I'm talking about, friend? Can you honestly say right now Jesus is wonderful to you? We cannot serve God with half a heart. You're either all in or not. You're either full board or not.

You're either on the full stretch for God or not. You're either on the out and out for him or not. You're either wholly consecrated to him or not.

You're either fully on fire for him or you're not. God is looking for the man that he can use to do the incredible with. Does his word not say so in 2 Chronicles 16 9? For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth to show himself strong in the behalf of them whose heart is perfect toward him.

God gets serious with those who get serious with him. When the tide goes out, every shrimp has his hole. Is that what you'll settle for, or do you want more? Then you must have more of God, and he must have more of you.

What are you waiting for?