And it shall be in that day, says the Lord, that you will call me husband and no longer call me my
master." You know, when you say the word Lord, you're really saying master. And so when we have
these wilderness times that he takes us into, it's so that he can get us to call him husband
instead of master. God promises in Joel 2.28 to pour out his spirit on all humanity. Welcome
to Global Outpouring. Are we content for that promise outpouring? We equip for that outpouring
so that we may engage in that very outpouring. I'm Philip Buss. And I'm Sharon Buss. Welcome to the
podcast today. We have a wonderful topic that I think most of us have, whether we're there now
or have been there probably more than once, there's this place called the wilderness.
And, you know, sometimes you just go through those times of the wilderness. And so why do we go
through the wilderness? What about the wilderness? I think it's really all about learning to lean.
Thank you so much for joining us today. We look forward to having this time with you and opening
our hearts and opening the Word of God and letting the Holy Spirit breathe on it to help us compare
Scripture with Scripture and come up with something that is life-changing. It's been
life-changing for me to prepare this message today. And I'm just excited about what God is going to do
in our hearts as we go through this. And I'm so excited to be here with you today. I'm so
excited to be here with you today. And I'm so excited to be here with you today. I'm so excited
to be here with you today as we open the Word of God together. But before we get started, I want
to encourage you, if you haven't already done so, that you go to our website, globaloutpouring.net,
and sign up for our email list. Subscribe to those opportunities that we have so that we can stay in
touch with you and we don't lose contact with you. And, you know, it's a two-way street. We love to
it's just so encouraging to us to hear back from you. And if you have something that you want us to
talk about on this podcast, let us know what the Holy Spirit is putting on your heart and
we'll see what the Holy Spirit leads us to bring. So just thank you for staying in touch and make
sure that you have it on your calendar to be with us for Convention 2025 in St. Louis, Missouri at
the St. Louis Airport Marriott Hotel, May 21st through 24th. And it's going to be a time when we
are getting to know each other better, a time where we're going to be going deeper into worship
than we've ever gone before, deeper into the Word, deeper into intercession. It's about going deep.
And if you love the deep things of God, you will love this. It's a family camp. We've got something
deep for even the children and for the teens and for the adults. And it's multi-generational.
We'll have people there that are in their 90s and 80s and 70s and 60s and 50s and 40s and 30s and
20s and teens and little ones. It's for everybody. We belong together. We're part of the body that is
going to be reassembling in heaven together and they're already assembling there. So we just want
to encourage you to assemble together with us at the Convention 2025. It's going to be glorious.
And you know that we have Dean Braxton that's going to be ministering there and Tony Kemp.
And I just want to remind you that we will be recording with Dean Braxton again soon.
And this next recording, we are going to do questions from our listeners. So if you have
any questions about heaven and about Dean's experience in heaven, please send us an email
at feedback at globaloutpouring.org or you can go to globaloutpouring.net and there's a feedback
form there that will send us an email. So either way, we will get that word from you and we'll see
what the Holy Spirit leads in bringing these questions to our brother Dean. And he's going
to do a whole session on questions and answers at the Convention. So you'll probably want to be there
for that too. Yeah, it's going to be glorious. So this idea of being in the wilderness, I mean,
Phillip, have you ever been in the wilderness? Yes. Yeah. More than once. More than once. It's
an experience that all believers go through at some point in their walk and it's a part of
our walk with God. So what is he doing in causing us to go into the wilderness? So that's what we're
going to discuss today. And we're doing this because I had a conversation on the telephone
yesterday with a friend of ours and she was talking about how she's been in a wilderness for the last
couple of years and she was telling about the struggles that she's had and getting hit with
sickness, getting hit with financial troubles and needing knee replacements and, you know, having
concerns about loved ones and just stuff, just attacks, attacks, attacks, attacks, and just not
feeling that wonderful presence of the Lord that you have when everything seems to be going well.
Right? So that's a kind of a wilderness experience, right? So why are we going through
the wilderness? What's the purpose? Is there a reason for this? Is this just the devil or does
God have something that he's doing? Well, what about Jesus? What happened when he started his
ministry? Well, yeah, he went into the wilderness and he fasted for 40 days and 40 nights. Yeah.
In Matthew chapter four and verse one, then was Jesus led by the Spirit, led up of the Spirit,
Holy Spirit, into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil. Wait a minute. What? The Holy Spirit
led him? What? Yeah. Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the
devil. Oh. And when he had fasted 40 days and 40 nights, that's pretty rough fasting, get tempted,
you know? And in the wilderness too. Yeah. And you can read this account in Matthew chapter four.
So if Jesus was tempted, guess what? If we are his nature, we are sons of God,
he's the son of God and we're sons of God. So we want to be like him. Yes. So does that mean we'll
be tempted? Yeah. Does it mean we'll go through wilderness? Yes. But the key phrase to me is
he was led by the Holy Spirit. Yeah. I know. I never really saw it until I just kind of read that.
I thought, wow, the Holy Spirit led him to be tempted. And that's where his ministry all started.
Right. But there's something that happens in the wilderness that's testings. Yes. Okay. The
scripture that came to mind when I was talking with my friend yesterday was from Song of Solomon
chapter eight, verse five, it says, who is this that's coming up from the wilderness leaning on
her beloved? Okay. Coming up from the wilderness. Coming up from the wilderness. In other words,
you've been in the wilderness leaning on your beloved. Learning to lean on your beloved.
So let's look at what the wilderness experience is and scripturally, what is God trying to
accomplish in our lives that he takes us through these wilderness experiences? So first of all,
let's look at the word wilderness. Okay. What picture comes to mind for you, Philip,
when I say the word wilderness? I remember my wilderness when, you know, before I got saved,
when I was going through like a year or so breaking, you know, losing my bowling average,
losing my job. Yeah. And your car? Car loss. Yeah. Couldn't get a girlfriend, you know,
but all these things, but it was God letting all this happen. In the natural, what is the wilderness?
Well, wilderness, and we've seen wilderness all over the world. Yeah. It could be a rocky wilderness.
It could be just rolling hills can be a wilderness. If it's, you know, a wilderness where there's,
there's not a lot of people, not a lot of, a lot of stuff. And wild animals. Wild animals. Usually.
Yeah. Like we've got, we've got wilderness area right where we live. You know, there's a lot of
national forest and parks and that kind of thing. You can't live there, but you can. Right. You can
visit. Right. So, so is that a promise from God? You can't live, you can visit it, but don't stay
there. Yeah. Don't build a house. Don't build a house. You're just there temporarily. Yeah. That's
good. A spiritual house here. Yeah. So in the scripture where wilderness is the word used in
English for the Hebrew, there are a few words, but the main one is the word midbar. Midbar. Midbar.
And it means wilderness and it can be pasture land, uninhabited land, large tracks of wilderness
around the cities, but it also means mouth. Okay. So in, in song of Solomon chapter four, verse three,
it says your lips are like a thread of scarlet and your speech is comely or other translations say
your mouth is lovely. Here is a key to the wilderness. The wilderness and your mouth are
related. Okay. Your mouth can put you in the wilderness. Your mouth can put you in the
wilderness and it can determine how long you stay there. So here's what I've learned. I, I've been,
I've been stunned, absolutely stunned at the connection of the Hebrew words here. Just
spending hours in this, this afternoon. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I've been studying, studying, studying. It
is so amazing to me. So the word midbar and just for information sake, it's the Strong's number H
four zero five seven, but it comes from a root word that is H one six nine six in the Strong's.
And that is the word d'var, D-A well, I mean, I'm spelling it in English, but it's D-A-V-A-R.
The B and the V in Hebrew are spelled with one letter and sometimes it has a ball in it. And then
it's a B sound and when there's no ball, it's a V sound. Okay. Okay. So the word midbar,
wilderness comes from the word d'var, which means to speak. So you can see why the word
midbar also means mouth or your speech. So it means to speak, to declare, converse, command, promise,
warn, threaten. It means even to sing. Oh, there's an interesting thought. So the Strong's
definition says it's a primitive root and is perhaps properly to arrange. Okay. So it's about
figuratively of your words. So it means to speak, but it's talking about arranging your words.
What kind of words are you putting together? How are you arranging them? What is being spoken?
Okay. And it says to speak and sometimes rarely in a destructive sense to subdue.
It can mean to answer, to appoint, bid, command, commune. This is an important word, commune.
Communing in the wilderness is probably what Jesus did when he was in the wilderness for 40 days.
Right? Yeah. It can mean to declare, destroy, give, name, promise, pronounce, rehearse, say, speak,
be a spokesman. So there's this German scholar named Gisenius from the 1800s. And he says that
this word devar means first of all, setting in a row, arranging an order. And secondly, to lead,
to guide, specifically to lead flocks or herds to pasture, to rule, to direct to people,
to bring into order, to subdue. Three, to follow, to be behind. It can mean the inmost recesses of
a temple. Okay. So think about what can happen in the wilderness of you getting connected to the
Holy of Holies. Yeah. Based on what you say. Ooh. Then it can also mean those that are going to lay
snares coming from behind, to lay snares, to plot against, to destroy, destruction, death, pestilence.
But the primary idea of arranging in order or connecting from that arises the much used
and in the verb, the most frequent meaning to speak properly, to put words in order. So it's all
about putting your words in order, arranging your words. And that somehow that relates to
pasturing sheep, leading sheep or leading people in the wilderness. That's interesting.
In Genesis 1833, it says, and the Lord went his way as soon as he had left communing,
and that's that same word, devar, with Abraham and Abraham returned to his place.
So this idea of communing. Now Abraham lived in the wilderness most of the time. Yeah. Tents.
Yeah. He lived in tents and he moved around. He was nomadic. And so he was treading all over
that promised land that God had promised to him. And you have to travel because when you have a
large amount of livestock and they kind of eat the grass, you have to move on. Right. So this
word wilderness comes from the root word that means to speak. So let's talk about the children
of Israel when they escaped out of Egypt. Right? The children of Israel have just seen all of these
terrible plagues that God sent to Egypt because Pharaoh wouldn't let them go. And the word that
God had given to Moses to say to Pharaoh was, let my people go that they may serve me in the
wilderness. Let them come out into the wilderness to have a feast with me, which means they're going
to sacrifice and they're going to commune with me in the wilderness. Okay. They're going to have a
worship time in the wilderness. Let them go. Okay. And one of the words for plague is spelled the
same as this devar. It's the next number after that one in the Strong's numbering system. It's
1697 and it's also pronounced devar and it means words. Okay. So the one devar is to speak and the
other devar is words. And so those two are related to the wilderness. Words you speak. Yes. And the
words that you hear from God while you're in the wilderness. So here they are. They've just escaped
and Pharaoh suddenly realizes after they haven't come back. Now, if they went three days into the
wilderness, you could assume they might've been, if they'd done what they said they were going to do,
you could assume that they would be three days in the wilderness. They've walked out for three days.
How long are they going to sit there and have their feast at least a day or two? And then they're
going to come back for three days. You know, they would have been gone for seven, eight, nine days,
something like that before Pharaoh realizes, Hey, they didn't come back. Let's go after them.
So he comes after them and there, God tells them where to go. And it's into this narrow canyon
and the Red Sea is in front of them and Pharaoh's armies are behind them. But God told them where to
go. God spoke. Devah. He gave a command. Devah. And so, you know, they're screaming, they're
worried, they're going to die. And then God tells Moses, stretch out your rod. Okay. The rod of God.
Exactly. And there's a mighty miracle. The Red Sea splits. They run through the Red Sea onto the
other side on dry ground. And then as they get to the other side, Pharaoh's armies come in on their
chariots right into the same place that they watched the Israelites go. If they can do it,
we can do it. It's like a tsunami coming in from both sides. And it was over. So in the story in
Exodus 15, Moses is singing this song of victory. I will sing unto the Lord for he's triumphed
gloriously the horse and the riders thrown into the sea. Right. So Philip, would you pick it up
from verse 11? And just read quite a few verses here. Let's read to verse 27. Okay.
Who among the gods is like you, O Lord? Who is like you, majestic and holiness,
revered with praises, performing wonders? You stretched out your right hand and the earth
swallowed them up. With loving devotion, you will lead the people you have redeemed.
Ah, lead. That's an interesting word. With your strength, you will guide them to your holy dwelling.
The nations will hear and tremble. Anguish will grip the dwellers of Philistia. Then the chiefs
of Edom will be dismayed. Trembling will seize the leaders of Moab. Those who dwell in Canaan will
melt away and terror and dread will fall on them. By the power of your arm, they will be as still
as a stone until your people pass by. Come on. O Lord. Yes. Until your people you have bought
pass by. You will bring them in and plant them on the mountain of your inheritance.
The place, O Lord, you have prepared for your dwelling. The sanctuary, O Lord, your hands have
established. Yes. The Lord will reign forever and ever. Yehovah. For when Pharaoh's horses,
chariots, and horsemen went into the sea, the Lord brought the waters of the sea back over them.
But the Israelites walked through the sea on dry ground. Hallelujah. Then Miriam the prophetess,
Aaron's sister, took a tambourine in her hand and all the women followed her with tambourines and
dancing. And Miriam sang back to them, Sing to the Lord, for he is highly exalted. The horse and the
rider he has thrown into the sea. Yes. They had quite the party. Wow. Then, then what happened?
Then Moses led Israel from the Red Sea and they went out into the desert of Shura. For three days
they walked in the desert without finding water. Uh-oh. And when they came to Mirah, they could not
drink the water there because it was bitter. That's why it's named Mirah. Doesn't the word Mary come
from? Yes. Mary, Miriam, yes. Means bitter. Bitter. Yeah. So the people grumbled against Moses saying,
what are we to drink? And Moses cried out unto the Lord and the Lord showed him a log. And when he
cast it into the waters, they were sweetened. There the Lord made for them a statute and an
ordinance and there he tested them. There he tested them in the wilderness. Go ahead. Saying,
if you will listen carefully to the voice of the Lord your God and do what is right in his eyes
and pay attention to his commands and keep all his statutes, then I will not bring on you any
of the diseases I inflicted on the Egyptians, for I am the Lord who heals you. Then they came to Elam
where there were 12 springs of water and 70 palm trees and they camped there by the waters. Okay.
So they get three days into the wilderness. Now there's no water. Now they're complaining
and then they find water, but it's bitter water. But God's up for this. He tells Moses what to do
and he takes this log, throws it in and it makes the water sweet. And then it's like a kiss from
the Lord. Okay. He fixes the waters and he gives them this kiss and says, I brought you to this
wilderness to test you. Okay. And then he says, if you will carefully listen and do what is right
and pay attention to my commands and keep my statutes, I will not bring any of the diseases
I inflicted on the Egyptians. I'm the Lord who heals you. I'm Yehovah, the one who was and who
is and who is to come. And then he takes them to a place where there's plenty of water, 12 springs,
12 springs, plenty of water. He's wooed them into the wilderness and he's testing them. I'm here for
you. I am here for you. I'll take care of your needs. Will you obey me? So then in the very next
chapter, they start to murmur and complain again. And they're grumbling that they wish they had
stayed in Egypt where they had flesh pots and plenty of food. And God is listening to their
grumbling. So he sends manna, manna. I mean, it's, it's a miraculous provision of bread.
Yeah. The bread of heaven. But he's going to test them with it. But he's testing them. So he gives
them instructions how to do it. Okay. Everybody gather some. And if you gather little, you'll
still have enough. And if you gather too much, you know, you, you won't need more than what you
gather. Every man according to his eating. Exactly. Okay. And there were people that kept it over the
next day. They were supposed to dispose of anything that was left over. That's the rule. Okay.
Here's what you do. Here's how you do it. And there were still people that said, I'll just keep it.
Doesn't apply to me. It says it had developed worms and it stank. Exactly. Okay. So then,
then here comes the rule for the sixth, the sixth day, everybody's supposed to gather twice as much
on the sixth day. Well, there were people that went out on the seventh day and God was grieved.
Don't they get it? Don't you listen? Don't you understand? I'm giving you instructions of how
to do this and it will be well with you if you'll do what I tell you. Right. So it was about testing.
He gives them instructions to test them. So in the wilderness, God gives instructions. He speaks.
Okay. Midbar in the wilderness, davar, he speaks. He gives words, he gives words of instructions.
So we speak also in the wilderness. Are we speaking his word or are we complaining?
Or are we complaining? Okay. The complaining is what got them in trouble every single time.
Yeah. Okay. So are we going to, are we going to speak what he says or are we going to speak
contrary to what he says? He also took Israel to teach them to worship him. And he brought them
to betroth them to him as his people, as a bride. He brought them to Mount Sinai.
When the 10 commandments were given, that was what the Jews call the ketubah,
which is a marriage contract. A real Jewish wedding is going to have a ketubah where it's all
written out what they're going to do for each other and how they're going to live. And then it's
signed. They sign it. So this is our marriage contract. It's written. So God gives them the
10 commandments as the contract, as the ketubah, because he wants them to be to him as a bride.
He wants to be a husband to them. And he says that he uses that expression. I will be a husband to
you. Let me take care of you. And so this is where we see that other word, davar. It's the same
it's the same spelling as the other davar, but it means words. Okay. So where it in Exodus 34, it says,
and the Lord said to Moses, you hew out two tablets of stone like the first that you broke.
And I will write upon these tablets, the words, there's that same davar that were in the first
tables, which you broke. And then in verse 27, and the Lord said to Moses, write these words,
davar for after the tenor of these words, devar, I have made a covenant with you and with Israel.
Verse 28, and he was there with the Lord. He, Moses was there with the Lord 40 days and 40 nights. He
didn't eat bread. He didn't drink water. And he wrote upon the tables, the words, he meaning God
wrote upon the tables, the words of the covenant, words, devar of the covenant, the 10 commandments,
devar. So that word commandments is also devar. So, so when we're in the wilderness, he's making
covenant with us. He's taking us into a place where he's trying to make us his bride. Okay.
So we have to get it out of our heads that men are only sons, women are also sons and men are also
bride. Okay. We are both there in Christ, there's no male or female. I guess you could sort of use
that word, but you know, there's no gender confusion, but I think just as a side note,
I think that the gender confusion that we are seeing is the devil's twisting of the principle
that a woman can be a son of God and a man can be a bride. Isn't that an interesting thought?
Yeah.
Okay. Moving on. So this word devar, this second devar means a word or speech or saying,
and it's the same word that's used in Genesis 11, one where it's talking about the tower of Babel.
And it says the earth was of one language and of one speech. In other words, one kind of word.
And then Genesis 15, one says after these things and the word things, there's also the same word
devar, the word of the Lord devar came unto Abram in a vision saying, fear not Abram, I am your
shield and your exceeding great reward. Okay. Now this is very interesting to me that this word,
word, it says the word appeared to him.
The word appeared.
The word appeared to him.
The word appeared to him. So if you think, what scripture does that remind you of?
That's John 1, 1. In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God.
Yes. And when you look into the Septuagint, you know, the Septuagint is the Greek translation
of the Hebrew scriptures. In other words, it's the Old Testament written in Greek. It's the
first translation that was ever made of the Hebrew scriptures into another language.
And where the word devar is used, they use the same word logos. Okay. In the beginning was the
logos. Okay. And so, so they most often use that logos in the Greek to translate the word devar.
And then they usually mean like the written word logos, like our Bible is.
Logos is more about the idea behind it.
But then, but Ramah is the, it's like current and electricity.
That's the voltage. You know, that
Yeah.
If you want to look at it that was where we're ham, ham radio people.
Yes. And well, I'm still learning.
I haven't taken my test yet, but anyway,
the difference between logos, let me just get that in the beginning was the word.
So the word word is logos and it means of speech, a word uttered by a living voice
embodies a concept conception or idea. What someone has said is a word. It's the sayings of God.
It's decree. It's a mandate or order. It's a of the moral precepts given by God,
the Old Testament prophecy given by the prophets. It could be what is declared, a thought, a
declaration, a weighty saying, a discourse, the act of speaking, a doctrine, a teaching,
a matter under discussion. It's used as respect to the mind alone. So it's also about the reasoning
and the mental faculty of thinking. And then in John, it denotes the essential word of God,
Jesus Christ, the personal wisdom and power and union of God. So this is from, I'm looking at the
blue letter Bible, the outline of biblical usage. So that's what the word logos means.
And the word Ramah, okay. So the helmet of salvation in Ephesians 6, 17, and the sword
of the spirit, which is the word of God. And that word is Ramah. And that word Ramah means that
which is or has been uttered by the living voice, thing spoken word, any sound produced by the voice
and having definite meaning. It means speech discourse, what one has said. It's a series of
words joined together in a sentence, a declaration of one's mind made in words. It's an utterance,
a saying of any sort as a message, a narrative concerning some speech, a subject matter of speech,
a thing spoken of. You know, actually, actually the Septuagint also uses this word for Devar.
Really? Yeah. Interesting. So both of them, both logos and Ramah have this idea of this is something
that's been spoken. Yeah. And it's spoken because it was thought. Yeah. It's like the light bulb
went off on Ramah. Yes. Yes. So the word of God, the sword of the spirit is the word of God. So
I think it has a lot to do with having the revelation inside of you of what this word
means. That's what Ramah, that's a good definition of Ramah. Yeah. God has spoken it and you got it.
Yeah. Okay. When you resonate with it. Yes, exactly. Exactly. So, you know, let's go back
to the wilderness here with the children of Israel, because God was trying to speak his word to them,
to help them learn how he thinks. He says so clearly in Isaiah, I believe it is, that his
ways are higher than our ways. His thoughts are higher than our thoughts. He's trying to get us,
to get his word, to get that Ramah revelation of what his word is saying so that it's heart-changing,
it's life-changing, it's connecting us with him, it's communing with him. So what happened to the
children of Israel when they went into the wilderness, God took them there to introduce
his word, okay, his commandments, his instruction, and then he tests to see if we'll obey.
So when we go into the wilderness, you know, honestly, I think that many times
we pray a prayer of some kind, like, Oh Lord, I want to know you more, a sincere heart. And we think
it's going to result in, Oh, God's just going to come down on me and I'm going to have this wonderful,
wonderful, romantic kind of experience with God where he just wraps his arms around me and loves
on me. And that's true that he does that. But lots of times he does things like just with little kisses,
like something that only you have thought about and he heard your thoughts, something,
some little thing that you said, and he got it and he brings it back to you. Some little thing,
like you're looking for something or you have an idea and then it shows up again. And it's not just
AI showing up on your phone. But he takes us into the wilderness to teach us his ways.
And sometimes we don't think of our prayer resulting in a wilderness,
but I really believe that God takes us into the wilderness to answer our prayers
of, I want to know you more, I have to have more of you. So he takes us away from a place where
there's lots and lots of people. He takes us away from our social structure. The whole idea of
there being a great move of God that began in 2020 that we were all expecting. We did not expect him
to shut us up in our houses to be in our prayer closets in 2020. We're expecting this great
outpouring that's going to reach every person. And that wasn't how it played out. But it was a time
where God took us into a wilderness to teach us his ways. Did we learn them or did we just complain?
It's like we had our own wilderness when we had that accident.
Oh, that was a terrible wilderness.
Yeah, we're on our way to Israel. We're going to worship on the... Well, we're one of the worship
teams. And then we have this wreck. And first thing out of my mind when I'm in an ER and laid
back in a bed and I open my eyes and I look with my hands, my first thought was, it says,
my God, will I ever play guitar again? And it was the dark night of the soul.
It was.
It really was. That just spiritually knocked the starch out of me.
But hadn't we prayed, I want to know you more. I mean, that's a regular prayer on my lips.
I just want to know you more, Lord.
And it doesn't mean you have to go through an accident.
No.
It was an attack.
That was a real attack. It was backlash from...
Right. Other things.
Other things.
And we won't go into that.
Other things that we did that the devil didn't like.
You know?
Yes. But the whole point is that, are you going to take it from the devil or are you going to take
it from the hand of the Lord? Has he chosen to allure you into the wilderness, to woo you into
the wilderness to make you his bride?
We just got thrown into it.
Yeah. It was a tough time. It was a very tough time. So back to the children of Israel.
They spent about a year camped around Mount Sinai while God was giving the word. He was
giving the word. He was teaching them. He was helping them build the tabernacle. He was getting
the priesthood in order. He was getting the Levites to know what they are supposed to do,
teaching everybody how they're supposed to be behaving. Right?
Right.
And they pretty much figured out, okay, so we're not going to keep the manna overnight.
And except on the sixth day, and then we're going to have twice as much. You know, they learned
that, I think. I think they got it. Right? Then in Numbers 11, after a year, they start complaining
again. Their cloud moved. They headed to a new part of the wilderness. And then they start
complaining about the manna. Now they want flesh. So then God gives it to them. The quail were like
three feet deep.
And that's just amazing.
And that's just amazing. Yeah. And I've heard that there is such a thing as these quail out in that
part of the world that will multiply in these vast, fast ways and just show up in huge, huge
numbers. So it's a real thing. So they start complaining. And God says, all righty then,
here you go. This is what you want. This is what you get. And the ones who were so lusting for
meat, they just bit into it raw.
Raw. Yeah.
They didn't bother to cook it. And they died before they could even chew the bite.
Wow.
So they lost a whole bunch of people there because God was trying to deal with their hearts.
Please just love this way that I'm teaching you. Please just learn to love me. That's the first
and greatest commandment, love the Lord your God. All of these laws are so that you know what it
looks like when you love me. So then in Numbers 11, now the spirit of complaining hits Miriam,
Moses' sister. So she's also a prophetess, right? So she's complaining about Moses' wife.
And she's complaining about Moses. And I'm a prophetess too. And God shows up and says,
yes, you said what's going on in your heart. You've got this jealousy and you're speaking
against my servant Moses, who's the most meek person in the world. You're out of order. See
that word midbar means ordering your words. Okay. Setting things in order. So Miriam had
gotten her words out of order. You know what it's like when a machine is out of order. We've got a
refrigerator that's out of order right now. Okay. And Philip keeps changing parts and we keep hoping
that we can get our refrigerator back. Right? So you just keep, okay, that part change didn't help.
Let's try another one. But it's out of order. Okay. It's not working properly. And that's what
happens when our words get out of order when we're in the wilderness. And sometimes it's our words
being out of order that get us into the wilderness. Sometimes it's our words in order that get us in
the wilderness when we say, oh, I just want to know you more. And sometimes it's because we're
complaining and that puts us into a very dangerous position. So anyway, she wound up getting leprosy.
Moses intercedes for her and says, oh God, please have mercy. And he says, if she had just spit in
your father's face, she would have been shut out for seven days. So you just leave her outside the
camp for seven days. Because if you're leprous, you have to go outside the camp. You can't live
in the camp with everybody else. So you have to go in the wilderness if you get your words out of
order. She was out in the wilderness all by herself. Right? So then in the wilderness,
right? So then in Numbers 13, oh, it's just one thing after another. So they sent one man from
every tribe to go for 40 days and search through the land and bring back a report. Right? They come
back and they say, oh yeah, absolutely. This is a land flowing with milk and honey, but there are
giants in the land. They'll eat us for breakfast. We can't do this. We just can't do this. It's just
grasshoppers in there. So yeah, we can't do this. So they brought this evil report. Okay. Their words
were out of order and Joshua and Caleb are trying to say, no, we can do this because the Lord is on
our side. Look at all the miracles he's done. Don't you get it yet? Don't you understand yet?
Haven't you got your words in order yet? Haven't you got your thinking in order? See your words
come out of the meditations of your heart. What are you thinking about? Are you thinking in line
with what God has said or are you thinking in complaining? This is where the rubber meets the
road. This is where we're determining our destiny by our words. Okay. So then in chapter 14 of
Numbers, now the people are crying all night. They said we can't do this. Oh, we should have just
stayed in Egypt. We could have died in Egypt. We could have been buried in Egypt. We could have
died here in the wilderness. Now we're going to die by the sword. Yeah. So God is listening.
They're also saying, let's appoint a captain and go back to Egypt. See, they've already been in the
wilderness. They've been in bondage for 400 years. Right. How many generations is that?
It's four. And then they want to go back. Yeah. They're not thinking right. They're still thinking
like slaves. They're not thinking like the people of God. They're not thinking about the covenant
promise that God made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. I'm going to give you this land. It's a covenant
promise. I'm doing it. I'm going to do it. So, you know, then God shows up again. The glory of God
appears and he threatens to kill them all and start over with Moses. You know, they're ready
to stone Moses and Aaron and Joshua and Caleb. You know, but when the glory comes down, that just
changes things. Yeah. Look out. Yeah. Look out when the glory comes. So Moses intercedes again. Lord,
this wouldn't be good for your reputation. You really shouldn't kill everybody because then all
of these people that are watching, that have watched us come out of Egypt, they've watched you
take care of us in the wilderness. There's stories going on ahead of us because people are watching
and they're hearing the stories and they know that you do miracles. And what's it going to do for your
reputation if you kill all these people? They're going to say, well, see, he wasn't able to take
them into the promised land. He wasn't able to keep his promise. Yeah. That's not good for you,
God. You can't do that. So he relents, but he says, I'm going to make them wander in this wilderness
one year for every day that those men looked around my land that I've promised your forefathers.
And all the people that complained, all the people that came out of Egypt and got with this idea
that they're going to go back to Egypt and they're not going to go to the promised land,
they're all going to die in the wilderness because that's what they spoke. Yeah. It would be better
for us to die in the wilderness than to die by the sword of the Canaanites.
So they did. That's what you want. That's what you get. And that's what happens in the wilderness.
We have to line up our words with our Father, line up with his words, line up with his thoughts.
So then you move on a little further in Numbers chapter 21, they complained about the manna again
and now the snakes come out and bite them and many, many, many died. And so they repented and
complained to Moses, what do we do? What do we do? We shouldn't have said anything. And the Lord tells
Moses to make a bronze serpent and anybody who gets snake bit, just look at the serpent. That's
all you have to do is look at it. What a lesson. That is a picture looking forward to Jesus on the
cross. All you have to do is look at him and accept the fact that he's taking care of the snake bite.
He's taking care of the snake bite. Okay. We've all been bitten by that snake of sin, right?
So it's about letting him teach us his ways so that we can look to him. He's the only one who
can deliver us. And we're in the wilderness with him. He's in the wilderness with us. It's still
Emmanuel, God, with us. So then in Numbers 22, you've got Balak, the king of Moab and some of
the chieftains of the Midianites. They get together and they hire Balaam to come. Balaam is...
He's the seer on the dark side.
Yes. That's a good way to put it. Thank you. And he comes all the way from Mesopotamia and they're
asking him to come and curse Israel because they know that he's got that capability. But he
recognizes that the God of Israel is to be feared and the God of Israel is taking care of Israel.
So he goes out to look at them and instead of cursing, he blesses them. Balak gets all angry
and I hired you to come and curse them. He says, I can't curse what their God hasn't cursed. But
then he says, here's how you do it. I can't curse them, but they can bring the curse on themselves.
Yeah.
If they will sin against their God. So here's what you do. You send your pretty girls into their camp
to seduce them and get them involved in sexual immorality and get them to worship the idols
of the Moabites and the Midianites. And it will bring a curse on them. And of course, that is
exactly what happened and they lost 24,000 men and it would have been the younger men mostly. So
that's pretty scary. Don't fall into temptation in the wilderness. You're being tested.
That's what the wilderness is about. It's about testing. It's about seeing, are you going to obey
me or aren't you? So God was taking the children of Israel through the wilderness to turn them from
slaves into a kingdom of priests. It was about a bridal thing, but also a kingdom of priests.
And then he was weeding out the disobedient in the wilderness.
So our wilderness times are meant to help us get the doubt out and get the fear out
and get the complaining out. And he takes us through the wilderness to build our faith and
trust in him so that we'll learn to speak his word and bring order into our lives by letting
his spirit work his word in us so that we'll obey him out of our love for him. That's what the Holy
Spirit is doing. He's trying to build his fruit. And us, the very first fruit that's mentioned
in Galatians chapter five is the fruit of love. It's the thing that Paul says, this is better than
all of the gifts. He gives this whole long list of gifts in 1 Corinthians 12. And then he says,
but let me show you a better way. The greater way is the way of love. Love, love, love, love God,
love your fellow man, love, love, love. Okay? So let's go back to our original scripture.
Who is this coming up from the wilderness leaning on her beloved? So my friend with whom I had this
conversation yesterday, she was talking about the pain that she was going through. I think it was
when she was having the knee surgeries, the replacements and so on. She was in so much pain
and she's walking with her walker because she's supposed to walk with her walker.
And, and she's just in agony and she's just breathing.
Sometimes all you can do is just breathe when you're going through a difficult situation. And
the thing that the Lord had showed me years ago was that he, he designed Adam to breathe in of his
presence and to breathe out worship, breathe in of his presence and to breathe out worship. And then
when I brought that to Dean Braxton, that I felt like the presence of God is like oxygen and it's
all around us and we can't sense it with our five senses, but it's all around us and we can't live
without it. And that's the way the presence of God is. And so just breathing, sometimes that's all
you can do, but she would say, yay, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will
fear no evil for thou art with me, thy rod and thy staff, they come for me. So she's, she's saying
the word, the word was working in her. She's not complaining about the pain. She's saying the word
and the word is working in her and the word is bringing healing into her as she takes one step
after another step after another step. And eventually it gets easier and eventually the
pain goes away, but you go through those times, but those times of returning the Lord's word to him,
just even saying Jesus, when there's nothing else you can do or just breathing and just breathing
in his presence in faith and breathing out just not even worship with words, but that your exhaling
is worship. It's part of living. You're just living in this wilderness of pain for a while.
God sees that as perfume. He sees that as incense. He sees that as a kind of prayer
and he's making notes of it. And it's like, I'm reminded of Revelation 5, 8. It says when he had
taken the book, this is when John is seeing what's going on at the throne. This is the lion of the
tribe of Judah that appears as a lamb. When he had taken the book, the four beasts and the four and
20 elders fell down before the lamb, having every one of them harps and golden vials full of odors
or perfumes, which are the prayers of the saints. See, when we let God do in us this thing that
he's doing in us in the wilderness, when we let him do that in us, it produces incense day and night,
night and day, let incense arise. Our prayers, our Jesus or Yeshua, however you want to pronounce
his name, it's about connecting with him at the heart. My heart is reaching out to him. And so
when we're saying, Lord, I want to know you more, and he takes us into this wilderness place,
it's learning to lean on him. Who is this coming up out of the wilderness, leaning on her beloved?
It's about learning to lean on him as we come up out of the wilderness. But there is another
come up out of the wilderness verse that is Song of Solomon 3, 6. And it says, who is this coming
out of the wilderness like pillars of smoke? Pillars of smoke, what does that remind you of?
The pillar of cloud in the wilderness, in the wilderness, perfumed with myrrh and frankincense
with all the merchant's fragrant powders. So this bride in Song of Solomon is speaking of the bride
groom who has become fragrant with the prayers of his people in the wilderness. There's something
that happens in the wilderness that knits us at the heart level with the lover of our soul,
that one that is expressed in the Song of Solomon coming up out of the wilderness
as the beloved that the bride is leaning on. And he becomes perfumed by her prayers.
Beautiful. Hallelujah. And just to close, I want to bring Hosea chapter 2, 14 through 16,
and 19 through 21 in verse 23. Hosea chapter 2, 14 to 16. Therefore behold, I will allure her,
or I will woo her. We'll bring her into the wilderness and speak comfort to her. I will
give her her vineyards from there and the valley of Akor as a door of hope. She shall sing there
as in the days of her youth, as in the day when she came up from the land of Egypt. And it shall
be in that day, says the Lord, that you will call me husband and no longer call me my master.
You know, when you say the word Lord, you're really saying master. And the Lord has us in this
has us in this wilderness time. And this is about the children of Israel, obviously. This is about
Israel. But we're grafted in. So when we have these wilderness times that he takes us into
these wilderness times, it's so that he can get us to call him husband instead of master. Verse 19
says, I will betroth you to me forever. Yes, I will betroth you to me in righteousness and justice,
in loving kindness and mercy. I will betroth you to me in faithfulness and you shall know the Lord.
Remember, we pray, oh, God, I want to know you more. That's part of the new covenant is that we
would know him. Verse 21, and it shall come to pass in that day that I will answer, says the Lord,
Yehovah. I will answer the heavens and they shall answer the earth. Verse 23, then I will sow her
for myself in the earth. Then I will have mercy on her who had not obtained mercy. Then I will say
to those who were not my people, you are my people and they shall say, you are my God.
So this wilderness time is really about connecting with God in a deeper way than you've ever known
him before. So if you find yourself in the wilderness, maybe you're in a wilderness right
now, or maybe you've been in one, or maybe you're going to go into one, say the right things.
Learn to say the word of God in that wilderness time. Learn to press into his presence
in love and watch for all those little kisses because he's always constantly giving us things
to show his love to us. Start recognizing those things. Start being thankful. Thankfulness will
get you out of the wilderness faster than anything. Being thankful and being filled with the love of
God. So Father, we pray for those who are in wilderness situations or who are going to,
or have been, and they've been wounded there. Lord, we're just asking for your love to be so poured
out that your people, your people will be restored and be made whole and learn to lean on you coming
up out of the wilderness in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. If you enjoyed today's podcast, please subscribe, rate, and review this podcast on Apple podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts. Your review helps the podcasting platform suggest this podcast to other listeners who are also looking for a great move of the Holy Spirit. Check out our website at globaloutpouring.org.
To find out more information, read our blogs, connect with us, and donate. You can also browse
our web store for life-changing anointed books. Until next time, this is Sharon Buss. And I'm Philip
Buss. God bless you with this overwhelming, loving presence.