The Desert: Exegesis vs Eisegesis

0:02 Looking at our world from a theological perspective. This is the Theology Central podcast making Theology Central. Good afternoon everyone. It is Monday, November the eleventh, twenty twenty four. It is currently one twenty two pm Central Time, and I am coming to you live from the Theology Central studio located right here in Abilene, Texas. Now right here in Abilene, Texas. Today, Well, it's a nice, warm day, and that means there's people all out in the neighborhood doing all kinds of different things. And there's probably more people out and about in the neighborhood because it's Veterans Day, so a lot of people are off from work, and so I guess they've all decided to go outside on this warm November day here in West Texas and do projects. There's sauls going hammering a staple gun. I don't know what they're doing, and it's causing all the dogs in the neighborhood to just lose their ever living minds. I think the dogs are like, hey, guys, you're all supposed to be at work. It's supposed to be a nice, warm, lazy day. Stop disturbing our rest. Okay, So the dogs are barking. There's all kinds of noise outside.

1:15 So if you hear anything in the background, I apologize. I know, yeah, I wish it was a soundproof studio. I wish it was, you know, really made for broadcasting it. I mean, in some ways this is the perfect place to broadcast. In other ways, it's not just because I have this window right behind me and that's where all the noise comes from. So with all that said, if you hear that, I do apologize, But I hope we can get something accomplished. I hope. So so let me start with a very important question in your Christian life. Looking back over your Christian life, what are some of the major changes that have happened in your thinking about Christianity, about the Bible. Have you become I don't know, more almost excited about Christianity? Have you become more jaded? Have you become more discouraged? Have you become more frustrated? Have you feel do you feel more negative feelings or more positive feelings about your faith, about the Church, about Christianity, what has changed in your overall attitude about it? What has changed in your feelings about Christianity, the Bible, God, anything related to your faith, what things have kind of you've seen a slow, steady transformation. Maybe you went from excited on fire zill but very little knowledge, and then

2:48 maybe the more knowledge you have gained, you've become more jaded, more irritated, more frustrated, more discouraged. Have you experienced something like that? I think I have. I don't even I don't even know if it's right to say I think I know I have. I can look back in my early Christian life and how excited I was every time you know, Oh, oh, oh, Chuck Swindall, Charles Swindall, Chuck's Windall, what however you like to refer to his first name? He's coming on the radio. Okay, grab my bible, grab a notebook. Okay, Oh, Joe MacArthur's coming on. Oh oh oh there's Chuck Smith. Well I'm not as excited. Okay, Oh, there's there's the Lutheran Hour. Oh take notes. Oh there's night Sounds. Oh that's good. I had all these different you know, broadcasting broadcasters and preachers and teachers, and I was excited for all of it. Right, I didn't really have the knowledge to go good or bad, even if I thought I disagreed. I didn't feel like I had the knowledge to really disagree. It would just be more like trying to struggle with hmm, I wonder what that means?

3:57 And then I would hear, you know, preacher A then condemned that kind of teaching and that kind of teaching, and it would get a little bit confusing, maybe a little bit of frustrating. But I was more and just trying to at that point acquire information. It was like I entered into a brand new world and it was more. It was it was it was bright, it was exciting. It was like I I was. I was in a brand new world and I didn't have a map, and I was just trying to figure it out. And the Bible was all, you know, oh wait, what does this mean? And what does this mean? And oh wait, I don't think I remember that. Oh wait what is that? Well? Oh wait, that is interesting, and and everything was new and it was vibrant and it was live, and there was excitement. And if I walked into a church, every church felt interesting and exciting because it was a brand new world and wait, what do they mean by this?

4:48 What do they mean by that? And it was it was a it was just a time of trying to find meaning and purpose and understanding, and there was just a lot going on, but it felt so different. Then the process began of going to this church and this church, and then you start seeing some of the negativity and bad things in churches, right church splits and fighting and arguing and sometimes people saying some of the most ridiculous things, and then experiencing some tragedy in my life, and hearing how Christians supposedly provide comfort by saying some of the most ridiculous things I've ever heard in my life. Just on and on and on, just watching things unfold. And in the meantime, I'm going to this Bible college, and I'm going to go to this Bible college, and I'm going to go to this seminary, and I'm going to go to this Bible Institute, and I'm going to get as much education as I can possibly get. And I get an associate's degree, and I get a bachelor's degree, and I get a master's degree, and I want another associates and i want another bachelor's and i want another master's.

5:49 And I'm going from one degree after another degree gaining. But it's not about the degrees. I don't care about the degrees. I don't care about letters, you know, in front of my name. I don't care about putting up the degrees you know, on the wall. I don't care about any of that. I don't even care. I don't care about any of that. I just want to learn about the Bible and theology and church history and all of these things. And so there's just like excitement like trying to figure it out and trying to figure it out and trying to figure it out, and then little by little you start, you know, well, I think your attitude begins to change a little bit, and now I'm much more jaded. I think it's just fair to say I am much more jaded now, much more frustrated now, much more irritated now, much more likely to just be like whatever, right, like just probably a very negative outlook.

6:42 And you can say, well, that shouldn't have happened, Well it I think I would argue, no, it should have happened because of the ridiculousness and the craziness and the insanity that kind of makes up what Christianity is. See, what's once you really get into it, you kind of look around and you go. Christians say some of the most ridiculous, and in saying things, they they promote something that's just not wrong. I've been a Christian long enough to know that a lot of what is preached, and how it's preached and and the promise is made, they don't pan out in reality. They don't work the way Christians act like they work. They don't. The reality is is far different. Can I say the reality is far more depressing and discouraging than all of the supposed hope and comfort that we are told that we have, because in many cases they're their hope and their comfort. It's all it's it's it's it's just it's it's not real.

7:49 It's not real. It's it's it's it's a mirage. It's not real. It's it's fraudulent. It's it's it's a face. It's like a it's like a and a play. It's supposed to look this way. But if you go walk up on the state, well that's not really, that's not really. This, it's a prop it's cgi it's fake. I don't know what words you want me to use, and you hear me express my frustration with Christianity. I think more and more and more, I think what you hear in the podcast is it's not so much my disagreeing with Christianity, it's my frustration that Christianity is putting forth concepts, ideas, and promises that are just proven to be false. Now, early on in my Christian life, I did start experiencing some of this right when the more I begin to hear and see of charismatics right running around claiming that by His stripes we are healed. But in the Atonement, Jesus provides physical healing for the here and now if you will just simply believe, you will be healed of this and this and this, and God is raising people from the dead, and He's doing all these supposed miracles.

9:02 And I heard them say that over and over and over and over and over and over again. And then I became confronted, I don't know, with reality. And then I was like, you people are out of your ever living mind. So then, I mean, I never got disillusioned with charismatic theology. I just quickly realized those people are insane. That's the insane. They connect themselves with Christianity, but it's his insanity. All the things that were supposedly happening, God supposedly speaking to them, and then this charismatic said God told them this. But this charismatic saying God told them this, and it's like, well that one contradicts that when who was God actually talking to craziness, just all the insanity.

9:44 So I was like, okay, I knew one thing. I was still learning about Christianity, but I knew almost. I knew probably I feel like within fifteen seconds. I know that's an exaggeration, but for illustration purposes, within fifteen seconds, realize anything that's associated with charismatic world run from there out of their ever living mind. They're insane. They don't need philological help, they need mental health help because they are living in a complete delusion. They believe that God is doing this, and God is doing this, Like, look at the world around you, what are you talking about? Right? So I knew that was wrong, but I still felt that. Okay, over here, I was still like, okay, I'll believe this and believe this. But then over time I've become much more Now, guys, it's just not true. That's just that's just not what are you doing? So I became kind of more disillusioned with it. And then I think probably the last stage here has become very disillusioned with this whole.

10:47 I guess we just call them sermons. Sermons. I used to like, there was used to almost an enjoyment in sermons. Now there's almost a apprehension to even hit play, because I know, inevitably they put a sermon together, right. It may sound good, it sounds spiritual. It may provide you know, comfort, it may provide counsel, it may provide advice, it may sound so wonderful. They may be great speakers, and they articulate everything, and they don't mispronounce things like I do, and they read very and I you know, I can almost look to them and go, man, I wish I could be a better communicator. I wish I could communicate like them. But at the same time, I'm like, but what they are communicating is just totally lies. It's just garbage.

11:37 It's trash, it's not true. Because they take scripture and they make and they do things with it that you're like, that's not what the scripture is saying. And that has led us recently. I mean, you've heard my frustration with all of this develop over time I think if you've been listening to me for a long time, you can you tell that I'm much more just. You can almost hear that I'm just finished with it all. And I think at times I feel like I am. I'm just like, you know what, I don't know what any of this stuff is. I'm done with it all because it just it just becomes maddening. But the most recent example is the sermons that we have reviewed on Isaiah forty forty three.

12:19 Any of the sermons I've reviewed between Isaiah forty and fifty five has just been maddening. They run into Isaiah forty through fifty five. They just insert us, hijack the text, make it all about us, and it's just insanity. Like there's no even attempt to try to stay even reasonable with it. And it's so maddening. So we have been talking about and even the concept of Isaiah chapter forty verse one. If you've been listening, you know we've been talking about it over and over and over starts with comfort ye, comfort ye, my people. And so we were listening to someone about comfort, Oh, how we could get comfort from God? And then it made these statements that we should be comforted by this or comforted by this, and I'm like, well, any reasonable person would be like, that's not going to bring comfort, that's going to raise serious questions. So I even articulated that in the podcast. Well, yesterday at Victory Baptist Church, I had kind of make some on the spot decisions. Do we could just continue with Isaiah forty? What do we do? So I decided to dedicate two plus hours on Isaiah forty. We really did a lot of background work Isaiah thirty nine to Deuteronomy twenty eight. We provided a very good philological textual context for Isaiah forty to fifty five. I think we did pretty good there. I think we were doing we were doing a little bit of work on Isaiah forty, the work the Hebrew word for comfort there, all right.

13:51 We were doing a little bit of work there. And then I had to make a decision because we were gonna go I was gonna look at all the places the Hebrew word that's translated comfort and Isaiah forty, all the different places it's used in Isaiah. But then I felt like, well, I don't really have time to get into them. So then I kind of made a on the spot decision that I regret. I regretted it all the way in the drive home. I've regretted it all day Sunday, all Sunday night, trying to sleep, regretting it all the way till today I decided to kind of get into my frustration again. You're hearing a theme with how pastors take the concept of comfort and say, hey, we should be comfort. Like if you go to Isaiah forty through fifty five and you take the comfort that was meant for specific people, the people in Babylonian exile, rip it out of its context, and then to try to apply it to us, that's a fraudulent comfort. That's a fake comfort. And I believe over and over and over pastors take comfort in the Bible that's meant for someone else and try to apply it to us. Meaning you're giving people a fraudulent comfort. You're telling them to be comforted by something that was never meant to comfort them, all right, So that so I was already irritated by that.

15:03 So I kind of started articulating that, and then I got into the discussion of, well, some of the pastors that we've listened to in the Book of Isaiah, they'll find these passages that speak of God's power and that he's creator and he holds the stars in his hands. He's named the stars, these kinds of concepts, and they're like, we should find great comfort because God is all powerful, He's all mighty, and to me, I don't know why I'm supposed to find comfort and the fact that there's an all powerful God. When I see all the things going on, I'm like, well, in all powerful God could stop that, and could stop that, and could stop that and could stop that. How do I find comfort and an all powerful God? Unless God's using that power in my specific situation, then it's just a theoretical comfort. It's not none's there's no practical comfort in it. So I started to explain it. I thought I was just going to be able to mention it quickly and immediately. At least, I feel that the temperature in the church changed. And I don't believe everyone was happy with me going into that point, but it's like it has to be discussed.

16:09 So then I was kind of frustrated because I went much longer in the second hour. I went way too long. I went way too long. That was one of those cases where I went too long but I'm still getting used to not having a Sunday night or a Wednesday night, so I feel this great pressure to try to get everything fit in in two hours on a Sunday, And then it's it's different because the people in the second hour are not there for the first hour. So then yeah, it's really I'm still trying to figure out the logistics of it, which then still is making my I feel like it's really hindering how well I'm presenting the material. But then i was just kind of discouraged, and I'm like, why, you know, if I look back at my younger self, I would have preached about God's comfort very different than I did on November. What's today? Today's the eleventh. On November the tenth, twenty twenty four. Yeah, today is November Veterans Day. I should know that, right, I already mentioned that. Okay, it's November the tenth. If if it was November the tenth five years ago, six years ago, seven years ago, ten years ago, I would have probably preached very different than I did in twenty twenty four. But I'm frustrated with the way sermons are done. I'm fresh, I'm frustrated with a lot of it. So why why have I spent seventeen minutes just kind of walking you through that?

17:28 Because it really kind of sets up what I want to do here. So here's what happened. I had to wake up at what three forty three forty five this morning, so I've been up for a very long time. And I saw that there was a new episode from Insight for Living with Charles Swindall or Chuck Swindall, and it had something It was entitled do I have the file here? See? I had the file here. Let me see if I can find it. There's a PDF file that comes with the broadcast. Let me see if I can find it. I think I have it here. Yes, I have it right here. Here is the file. The file is tight entitled the Desert School of Self Discovery. The Desert School of Self Discovery. And when I saw that as the title for the episode, it was on one of my podcast apps, I get the notification Insight for a Living new episode, the Desert School of Self Discovery. I was like, Oh, that's an interesting title. I bet you I know where they're going to go, right, I said, I'm pretty sure I know where they're going to go, and then pastor Charles Swindall, he makes this statement, there's nothing like the desert to strip away all the trappings, pill off all the mask and help you discover the real you. And I'm like, oh boy, I know what Charles Swindall is getting ready to do. Charles Swindall is getting ready to

19:00 He's getting ready to go to these. Passages in the Bible where it talks about people in the desert, people in the wilderness, and it's going to turn into kind of an allegorical thing, an illustrative thing, and we're gonna be inserted into the desert scene and it's gonna all. Become about us. I'm like, well, let me listen. So I started listening, made it I don't know, a minute, two minutes, and I'm like, well, more discouragement, because this is exactly where my frustration is with Isaiah forty through fifty five. I'm like, why does this keep happening? Is every sermon just an example of pastors just going to the text spiritualizing it, I'll agorizing it, putting us inside the text, and I just I just don't know. So I'm like, well, I'm gonna have to listen to this at some point. So you know what, I'm going to listen to it with you. We're gonna review this, We're going to go through this and here and this. The reason I started with, how what has changed in your Christian life? How is your feelings in thinking changed? This is going to be very depressing for me because Charles Swindall was massively influential in my early Christian life. Again, I've told the story a million times that really the two men who discipled me was John MacArthur and Charles Swindall.

20:23 I mean, I have notebooks filled with every single day after school listening to them, taking notes, taking notes. If there was a book by MacArthur, if there was a book by Swindall, I purchased them. If I had the ability to buy their cassette series. I know that's dating me. I would buy them and then listen to the sermons over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over again. There was an excitement, there was a thrill, there was I could not wait. So now to listen to it, I'm going to hear something that if I would have heard it, then I'm probably most luckily I did hear it back then. I would have heard it back then and I would have been like, oh, wow, that's so good, that's so awesome.

21:06 I may have felt encouragement, I may have felt oh, excitement, But now I'm going to hear it and I'm going to be like, no, I'm going to the liquor store and I give up. And it's like I, in some ways I long to go back to where, Oh I love it. It was so encouraging, it was so amazing, it was so awesome. So do I want? And I think this is kind of a where I am Sometimes in some ways I want to recapture that more. I guess you can call it innocent, naive, passion and zeal, not the jaded, give up, discouraged. I want to go back to that, but you can't. I can't go back to that.

21:50 The more knowledge I this is almost the way it worked, the less knowledge I had, the least, the less I knew, the more ignorance that was inside of me. The more I could be encouraged, the more I could find comfort, I could find excitement about these story. The more I loved the sermons, I loved it. Right, I loved everything about it. It was great, it was wonderful. I could listen to Christian radio and the announcer would say something like, oh, let me write that down. Oh that's so good, so encouraging, and everything was like everything felt like it was just one truth after another, truth after another truth after another truth.

22:31 I would never even thinking about true or not. Everything was just true. Everything was just right. Like I had some disagreements maybe, but I didn't know enough, so just everything seemed like truth. But the more I learned, the more I learned, and the more I learned and the more I saw and the more I experienced, that illusion came crashing down. So it's like, which is best? Is it better just to be naive and just be excited and maybe more joy, passion, comfort, happiness, But it's all it's all based off an illusion. It's all a lie. Or is it better to be gain all the knowledge?

23:12 And then you're like, oh for crying out loud, No, Isaiah forty know that passage in Jeremiah about knowing the plants for me, None of that is about me, and just get and then just get frustrated with and what are you doing with that text? And no that's not what are you doing? Is it better to know the difference between Exejesus and Isa Jesus when a lot of sermons are nothing more than is to Jesus isid Jesus. But isn't it better just know Isa Jesus and just not know the difference between ex Jesus and Isa Jesus and just love the sermon. What's better to live almost in ignorance but find all of the benefits that come from it, or have all of those benefits of ignorance stripped away, but you're left with some concept of knowledge and truth. But now you're jade discouraged, and you know, hanging out at the liquor store. I know someone's gonna say those are wild extremes there. There's gotta be a happy balance. There should be. I just don't know what it is. But let's listen to a little of this.

24:18 This is an insight for living. You can look up the podcast on any podcasting app. I would tell you to subscribe to it. The only ones I don't like anytime. I just this is just again because I've been listening to Charles Windall. I think we used to call him Chuck Swindall, but all right, Charles Windall moment, maybe they maybe they used to announce miss Chuckwindall, but okay, but Charleswindall. That's aways his name is listed. But when now, when I listen to their program, when they pull from the old files from the archive from their library, I love it because it's like kind of recapturing a major part of my Christian life. When they play anything that's relatively new, I hate it because he sounds so different. You can hear his voice, I mean, because he's like, what eighties, he's getting ready to retire, he's got to be in his eighties now, and it just sounds so like what happened too, Because I'm so there's like an image captured in my mind the sound of it. So this one is an older one. So I definitely was in, Oh, I like this, and then to see then guess what happened?

25:25 I went from oh, I probably listened to this and this year or this year and trying to remember when I first heard it, and then all of a sudden going, oh no, it's not bringing the same joy and excitement. It's bringing more of that jaded discourage that almost just feeling defeated. So now maybe maybe, just maybe I'm gonna be able to go, oh, well, you know what, this actually is good because remember I didn't listen to everything. But let's find out are you ready or ready to do this? That's twenty five minutes of just trying to talk about it. But I think some of you can relate. I think some of you. Have you been a Christian for a long time, You've gone through this journey. Dare I say you've gone through this evolution? I think the evolution is inevitable. I get more worried about the Christians who don't ever seem to go through this. They're just still back at like stage one. I'm like, what happened?

26:20 And I noticed this dealing with a lot of previous Christian friends is after so many years. I would talk to them and it'd be like, dude, you're still talking like we did ten years ago. Your Christianity hasn't moved in any way, shape or form. I mean to me, it's you've got to move forward, right, I don't. I don't know how you can just live. I don't know. Maybe that's what's wrong. Maybe people say you went to too many schools. Maybe education is a bad thing, right. Maybe Christianity can only survive in a certain way, or at least in a certain kind of Christianity can only be experienced and proceed a certain way in the context a little knowledge, but more knowledge destroys or explodes that that perception. That's almost an interesting concept right there. But are you ready to go back with me? I don't even know what year this was originally preached, so I can't pinpoint exactly when I would have heard it. But it's the Desert School of Self Discovery, Part one, and this is a part of a broader series on Moses and well you, I think you're going to get an idea of it's really all about us. But here we go?

27:37 Are you ready? Here we go? In the journey of life, sometimes we feel like we're trekking alone through the desert with sand in our shoes and the sun bearing down. It's lonely, it's quiet, and it feels like we're getting nowhere. Well today, on Insight for Living, Chuck Swyndahl continues his biographical study of Moses in the Book of Exodus. We'll observe his decades of anonymity, shepherding his father in Law's Sheep and the Land of Midian. Moses's time in the desert teaches us profound lessons about our own walk with God. Chuck titled his message the Desert School of Self Discovery.

28:25 Now see when I would have heard that as a younger Christianity be like, ooh, this is good. In fact, I do remember how this influenced me, And I'll talk more about how I applied it to my life, because this did have a profound impact on me. But did you see how quickly it was all about us? Did you see how it became about us right out of the gate boom? It's about you, even though it's a biographical study about Moses. No, no, no, no, it's about your journey in life and how we can end up in a desert and now the desert is loneliness? Or wait, what just happened? What just happened? And now how we can take Moses's time in the desert and now it can teach me something? Wait a minute, is the experience Moses had now transferable to me? Are the principles transferable to me? And do now I create this idea that well, in life we go through deserts and now Our desert can be loneliness. Our desert could be difficulty. Now I can take the lessons supposedly that was taught to Moses and they just somehow transferred to me. Am I supposed to find comfort? Are they actually applicable? Or am I just giving myself some sense of comfort? Hope meaning purpose, insight?

29:46 All based off a complete fraudulent use of scripture. See that's see to me, it's serious. It's not just an issue of disagreeing that leads people. It makes everyone feel great for a period of time. But sooner or later the facade begins to fall apart. Sooner or later the stage prop falls over and you see reality. Sooner or later, the curtain is pulled back and you see the Wizard of Oz is just some guy like you get the I don't know how many different illustrations I can give you. Sooner or later you realize, wait a minute, I've been had, I've been played. So we'll play that again and then we'll go into this. Here we go.

30:33 In the journey of life. Sometimes we feel like we're trekking alone through the desert with sand in our shoes and the sun bearing down. It's lonely it's quiet, and it feels like we're getting nowhere. Well. Today, on Insight for a Living, Chuckswyndall continues his biographical study of Moses in the Book of Exodus. We'll observe his decades of anonymity shepherding his father in law's sheep in the land of Midian. Moses's time in the desert teaches us profound lessons about our own walk with God. Chuck titled his message the Desert School of Self Discovery.

31:16 Well, tonight, I want to talk about something that is painful, but it is essential in our walk with the Lord. I am referring to how the Lord handles some of his children. It seems the longer I live, the more I realize most of his children in preparing them for his purpose. Okay, so the hypothesis is being set up. God does certain things for most Christians to prepare them for his purpose.

31:57 So God has a purpose, and He's like, okay, the only way I can get you to that purpose is I've got to prepare you. And now what we're getting ready to find out is he prepares us by putting us in the desert. So now you see how this begins to shape an entire narrative, and for a Christian when we go through a difficult time, see, hey, hey guys, it's not just a difficult time like your neighbor across the street who's lost. He's going through a difficult time. But that's different. He just goes through a difficult time. But for us, no, no, no, no, no no. My difficult time is God putting me in a desert to prepare me for a purpose, for a purpose. Now is that purpose laid out in scripture? Is there just a purpose I make up? Like you know, I just make it up. Hey, God's purpose for me is this? Okay?

32:45 I guess you can give yourself some sense, But so what God has to do. He can't He can't just prepare you, you know, just make you the way he wants you. He's got to make you for some reason. He's got to put you in a desert and you've got to suffer, and if you suffer, then that's how he prepares you. So you see your desert time as all this is wonderful. He's preparing me. Okay, I what what is that purpose he's preparing you for? And why is it that one person's preparing is they're in a desert and I don't know they when they were young.

33:25 Now does the preparing start even before you're saved? Like maybe you're young and I don't know you're tied up in a closet and beat with a baseball bat, or tied up and burn with a curling iron, or whipped with an electric cord? Is that is that preparing? Is that God putting me in the desert to prepare me? What if you are a woman and you're raped, is that God prepared? Is that the desert where he's preparing you? Or no, no, No, that's that's that's just that's just bad things happening. Okay, okay, see already philosophical question. See I wouldn't have any of those philosophical questions when I was young. I would have been like, oh, okay, so all the bad things happening to me, is he prepared me? Hey?

34:11 What was preparing me for a purpose? Okay? Great? See it would have given me some sense of comfort. But now after all this time, I'm like, wait a minute, how do exactly does this work? So you can see kind of the hypotheses he's putting forth, and he's building this entire hypothesis though on a story about Moses, and I immediately note this is all us centered. Now, even though Moses is going to be utilized, it's not about Moses. It's really about you and I. Let's see what he says here. Let's see what he says here. Specifically, I'm talking about times in the desert. I am referring to the school in which God places his children to prepare them for a particular task. Now, there's no way that I can paint this attractive or colorful, glamorous, beautiful.

35:13 It was never designed to be. I'm talking about the desert, not in February. I'm talking about the desert in July. I am not talking about palm springs kind of desert, Okay, I'm talking about the kind of desert in the midst of the Mahave or the Sahara, the place of heat, the place of barrenness, the place where you are not productive. As we get into the subject, it helps me, as it may help you, to know that the Hebrew word for desert is mid bar. It's from a verb d'auvaire, meaning to speak. I find that significant.

36:07 The desert is the place where God. Speaks, communicates, to us a message we could not otherwise hear what he has to say if it were not for the desert, Because the desert is a place that strips from you all the things that you hang on to for comfort, all the things that you have felt you needed through life, but you didn't need because they were the things that kept you from hearing God. Okay, Now this raises all kinds of questions here. So the idea is that the Hebrew word for desert has this idea of speaking, of speaking, right, Okay, So if it came there is this idea of speaking, then what he's saying we are put into the desert, so we are stripped from all the things that keeps us from hearing God. We cannot hear God unless we are stripped from all of these things. Now this becomes obviously, I've got all kinds of theological questions. Are you saying God speaking outside of his word? Okay? Now, now, well, then obviously I reject that completely. God only speaks to us through his word. Are you saying I cannot hear God speak in his word unless I put in the desert and stripped of everything. Well, then if someone comes to me arguing so then now just look at the logical progression. Okay,

37:39 if that's true, then if someone starts arguing with me about biblical interpretation, I just say stop time out before we continue. How much time did you spend in the desert? How many things were stripped from you? Because if things weren't stripped from you, you can't hear God because it's only in the desert that you learn to hear from God. So unless you've suffered as much as I've suffered, then you can't argue with me because I can hear God better than you because I've been in the desert. I mean like literally, that's what it would lead to. Logically. Now again, as young bro, I would be I was like, oh, okay, so I need to go to the desert so I can be stripped so I can hear from God. And immediately that gave me some sense of hope, right, I mean, if you go back, I mean, if you go through my life. I mean I've gone through some pretty crazy, difficult, painful things and probably many of you have. So when I was young, it would be like, now I know why I went through all of those things, so now I can hear from God. God was stripping me away of everything. Ah, this is good. So it gave me a sense of understanding why I suffered. But then you go, wait a minute, do I so now I can hear now see you looking back, I'm like, So that means I could hear God better. So then your ability to hear God, Your ability to hear God is completely connected to and dependent upon everything being stripped that keeps you from hearing from God. Well, that raises lots of questions. Here,

39:15 let's and and well, we could get into the idea of I think mid bar is the Hebrew word. I wanted to do a little bit of work here on mid bar. If he gets into a text that uses the word mid bar, if I find it, I'm going to be if it's if it carries all the meanings he assigned to it. Well, we'll see. But let's let's let's continue speak. To begin with, let us look at Deuteronomy thirty two. As we observe a couple of verses here and another in Deuteronomy before we turn back to the man who incarnates all of these principles, Moses. And now, as you find Deuteronomy, let me say to you that you're desert probably will not be literally a desert. God does not call many of his children to live in the midst of the Mahave or the Sahara. But your desert might be caring for the aged over an extended period of time without relief. It might be confinement in some capacity.

40:28 It might be ill health that suddenly overtakes you and stays with you for an undetermined, undisclosed period of time. It is that which brings personal pain or hardship or heartache, that's the desert. So the desert is anything that brings pain, heartache and suffering, and that's a desert. And God put you there to prepare you for a purpose. In fact, the PDFI he states it this way. For many, the feeling of being stranded in a desert is a daily reality, stranded not in a literal desert, but in circumstances that seem like a desert. In his book Moses, a man of selfless dedication, pastor Chuck swind All. See why I see so his name is Charles Wendall. They call him Chuck Windall. You see, That's why I was going back and forth between the two.

41:26 He describes what may be your wilderness this way, you're ready. Here's his description of what your wilderness may be. Your wilderness, your desert experience might involve caring for an ailing family member or an elderly person over an extended time. Now this is weird. So your desert could be caring for the person who's suffering. And I'm assuming the person suffering their desert is the suffering. All right, But okay, so that now, just remember people of all walks of life. People who are Muslim people or atheist people are agnostic people are Satanists, people who have every religion they go through.

42:06 It's very common through human history to care for someone who's ailing, someone who's suffering, someone who's been injured, someone who has a disease. That's a pretty common experience. But so the narrative is, but hey, hey, but Christian your going through it is different. That person is suffering and you've got to care for them. But hey, hey, hey, it's your desert. God is preparing you for a purpose. He goes on to say. He goes on to say, so you're caring for an ailing family member or an elderly person over an extended time, with no help at hand and no relief in sight. Your sojourn in the dry lands might be a stubborn physical condition that keeps you confined. It could be that deep soul ache that comes with an unfaithful spouse or a rebellious teenager. And maybe moving from an air where you had numerous friends and deep family ties to a place that seems strange and alien, where you don't know anyone at all. You feel displaced, shelved. It may be a failure at school and estrangement from an old friend, a boring, thinkless job.

43:13 The desert wears many faces. Basically, the desert is anything you don't like. I mean, let's just be on. The desert is anything you don't like. Hey, you don't like it, But God put you there. God put you there. God put you there. And if God put you there because of an unfaithful spouse, so then all right, all right, Now we get into God's control versus man's free will. Now we get into all of these great I see again, before I would have had the knowledge, I would have been like, oh yeah, okay, so everything that's bad in my life it's a desert. Now. See when I was young, When I was young, this worked good, right, because see this is the way I did it. This is the impact this had on me. Right, So this is what I did. Ooh, man, I've gone through a lot. Man, I have gone through a lot. All the abuse and craziness that happened growing up, then my mom's death, okay, then then my attempted suicide eight weeks in a psychiatric hospital.

44:07 All these horrible things have happened to me, all the craziness, everything that's went down. But it was all desert. God put me in the desert to prepare me, to prepare me. And then I thought I was gonna get into ministry, and then that all fell apart, and so then I joined the military, and then okay, well now I'm in the military. I don't know if I'm ever gonna get to ministry, but hey, don't worry about it. Just this is my time of preparing. This is all God. He's gonna prepare me for something amazing, something great. Because I was young, and you feel like, oh, the whole world, but my whole life is in front of me, and it's preparing me. Now. It's one thing to be Moses and prepared for I don't know. One of the most amazing stories ever literally leading a nation out of captivity. Okay, all right, there you have something, but so what do you have? So when you're young, you can see everything as preparing you for something, some purpose, and maybe you find that purpose and maybe you like, oh this was it.

45:05 God prepared me for this job or God prepared me for whatever. You can try to find something, but at that time you're not really worried about what the purpose is. You just like, you know, okay, all this bad stuff is it's for a reason, so you feel it gives you comfort. Right, But what happens when I don't know, Now you're forty, now you're forty five, you're fifty, and you just your life look like to everybody else's life. I mean, you got a job, I mean you're doing this. What did he prepare you for? What was the great task? What was the great task? What was the great task? And what happens when the suffering comes later in life? Right? What if you're you're in your fifties and you're caring for someone who's whose health is getting worse and worse and worse, and it's terminal, and you just watch them, and you may watch them to your fifties and to your sixties and to your seventies and they die. What was God preparing you for your death? Hey, I watched this person suffer for twenty years and now I die.

46:07 Thank you for preparing me to die. I needed to watch suffering so I could be prepared for him. Like that doesn't even make any sense, but just know. So now the desert, So he takes desert in the Bible, and now the desert is just this nebulous thing that anything that you don't like is just a desert. But hey, don't get mad about it. God puts you in that school. Now you want to graduate with honors. So this is the way you act in the desert, and then you're gonna be You're gonna be the next Moses. You're gonna be the next David. It sounds encouraging. Just don't know.

46:51 I think at some point the facade it falls apart. Let's see what else he has to say. It may be a loss of a loved one by death or by another lover. It may be a broken romance. It may be a divorce. It may be moving from an area that you're very familiar with to an area that you know no one and you are away from all of the ones that you love and long to hear and to see to be with. You do see, you do see the philosophical problem here. God puts you in the school. But wait a minute, So that means God's controlling the situation. Why wouldn't God instead of putting me in the school, Why wouldn't he intervene to keep my loved one from dying. Why wouldn't he intervene to keep that horrible thing from happening. Why wouldn't he intervene to save the marriage? Why wouldn't he intervene? Hey, I mean, if he's going to intervene to use this to get me ready for my purpose, then why wouldn't he then intervene to stop this stuff from happening? Right?

47:57 I mean, like you see where he gets kind of confusing. Hey, I know it's horrible, but hey, it's just know that the God who could have stopped it didn't stop it because he's going to use it for some nebulous purpose that you can and you guess what, you probably can assign what the purpose is. If you want. This becomes very much like you get to kind of create your own narrative. Here the desert wears many clothes. May be a failure at school or at work. It may be a boring, thankless job, but that's your calling. That's the desert now.

48:40 In Deuteronomy thirty two, we have a direct reference to the nation Israel, but I want to apply it immediately to your life and mine. Hey, hey, guys, this is a reference to Israel, but I want to immediately apply it to your life and mind. Hey, I guys, I know this is about Israel, but hey, we gotta get them out of the way. We gotta move them on out. We got to move them on. I think that's I think that's what we do. We're just the movers, right, we just walk in. I called us, you know, narcissistic textual hijackers. I think we're also narcissistic movers.

49:21 We just move in. We just move in, and we just we just take over. Hey, hey, Israel, I know you're here, but we're packing up your bags. You got to go, You got to get out. You gotta get moving because we're moving in. Baby, We're moving in. And even though this passage is about you, it's really about me. It's all about me. Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's yeah. I know your dog just started howling and your kids started crying. Okay, you get the idea. Let let's see what happens here. What passage I think you said, Deuteronomy thirty two. I think he said Deuteronomy thirty two. I have my Bible open to Deuteronomy thirty two. We're about to find out what and Deuteronomy thirty two that it was originally about Israel is about you and me? Are you ready? Are you ready? Let's see how this gets applied.

50:05 Deuteronomy thirty two ten. He found him in a desert land. Technically the hymn is a reference to the Jews, but by application, let's place your name in place of him. God found you in a desert. Now he's one of the most famous preachers. He's spoken everywhere, conferences, he's got books, he's the man. And what did he just do? Hey? Deuteronomy thirty two ten, He found him and a desert. Hey, hey, just put your name there.

50:48 Just put your name. What in the world is that not adding to God's word? Is that not? Isaid Jesus? You're reading into the text. Now there's the word desert. Okay, thirty two ten. I'm gonna look this up. Deuteronomy thirty two ten. There's the first use of the word thirty two ten. All right, here we go found him in a desert, into linear desert mid bar. Okay, okay, he was right here. It is translated speech, well, one time mid bar a drive a sense of driving a pasture, open field, whether cattle are driven, where cattle are driven a desert also speech. So it is fair to say that speech. I don't know if you can then derive from that the desert is the place where God speaks.

51:39 I don't know if you can necessarily. I think maybe that's a little inserting a little bit there, but speech is connected with midbar. Okay, so that's at least interesting. Okay, all right, but just know what he did thirty two ten. Deuteronomy thirty two ten. He found him. That hem just gets kicked out. You gots to go boom. Now put your name there, all right, we're gonna put our name here. We're gonna put our name here. Does that not bother you a little bit? Does that not bother you just a little bit? Let's see what happens. Please notice God found you in a desert. Notice that.

52:21 God is spending his time finding his children in a desert, and he is finding. The right desert for his children. There's a difference. Some of you would respond beautifully to one situation, whereas to someone else it would be a desert experience. Some of you would long for. A time of aloneness where you can be quiet, But for others of you, it would be a backbreaking hardship to spend time alone. And so what applies to one does not apply to another. Your desert will not be someone else's desert. But God is finding the desert you need.

53:07 So that God is finding the desert I need. So if you get divorced, that's the desert you needed. Well wait a minute, wait, wait wait wait wait wait, just wait wait how did that have Wait? If you get abused, that's the desert you need it like like, well you see that again. When I was young, I would not have had the knowledge to ask these philosophical questions. I would have just been that's right. So God, not only is this desert bad, and not only is this desert preparing me. God picked the right desert for me. He knew this is what I needed. Oh, I don't understand why my mom had to die. I don't know why I was beaten. I don't know why I almost killed myself.

53:54 I don't know why I ended up in a psychiatric hospital for eight weeks. I don't know why. Oh, but that was the desert I needed. Okay, let's see where he goes. But he might strip you of the crutches and build into your life through the process of a painstaking education, qualities of character you would not otherwise gain. Now he found him in a desert land. This word is mid bar, A place to talk to you in the howling waste of a wilderness. Wow, that is descriptive, isn't it. The howling of the desert comes from the animals as well as from the wind. I was in a desert yesterday afternoon.

54:50 I was asked to be a part of a group of men who met with their pastor to talk about their church. They were appraising the situation they're discouraged in that area. And it took me across a desert to get to that place of rendezvous where we might meet together with these men. And in the midst of the drive, I just pulled off the road and took a little side road away from the highway and turned the motor off, and I got out of the car and I took a walk several feet, perhaps one hundred two hundred three hundred feet away from the car, and it was all I was all alone, and I just stood there, and there was a howling in the desert, the biting sand, the heat. It came upon me as I stood there, and I sensed there is an awesomeness in the desert.

55:47 It was uncomfortable. It bit into my skin. It was barren. No fruit, no shrubbery, no lush, beautiful verdant trees or valleys, no oasis. It was a desert. And God finds the howling desert that you need. And once he finds it, he puts you into it. And the instant feeling that you get is God's gone. Where is he in the midst of this painful experience. You're no longer able to do things you once were able to do. And there's the fear I'm gonna lose my talent, or I'm no longer going to be useful, or I'm forgotten.

56:39 He's left me. Now, That's why I wanted you to look at this verse. Look at verse ten. In the howling waste of a wilderness, God does four things circle him, will you. First of all, he encircles us. Second, he cares for us us. Third, he guards us as the pupil of his eye. Isn't that beautiful? You know? The most protected part of your body is that pupil of the eye. You won't let anything touch it. You guard it with great care. You protect it constantly. The tiniest speck you keep from getting into it if you can.

57:32 In the desert, you are the pupil of God's eye. And to your amazement this evening you discover in fact, God has not left you. He has cared for you now more than at any other time. I want that to encourage you. Now. See when I was young, I got great encouragement. Okay, God, God knows where I am. He placed me here. But what is hopp to this text is literally criminal? This is literally criminal? What is happening to this text? Deuteronomy thirty two thirty two ten is about Israel and is based on God's covenant with his people. This verse is part of the Song of Moses, a poetic reflection Moses shares with the Israelites near the end of his life.

58:20 In it, Moses recounts God's faithful care and guidance over Israel, specifically his covenantal relationship with them. Deuteronomy thirty two ten states he found him in a desert land, and in the howling waste of the wilderness. He encircled him, he cared for him, He kept him as the apple of his eye. He found him in the desert. This refers to God finding Israel in a figurative desert or wilderness state, representing the nation's vulnerable condition. When God led them out of Egypt, they were a people without land, identity, or independence, entirely reliant on God. The language reflects God's covenantal lofe and commitment to Israel. By encircling, caring for, and keeping Israel is the apple of his eye, God demonstrated his unique protection and affection for his chosen people. The entire passage is grounded and the covenant God made with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, promising to make Israel a great nation and to be their God. This covenantal relationship undergirds God's guidance and care for Israel throughout their wilderness. But he just immediately removed them and inserted you that this is what God will do for you in your desert. Ladies and gentlemen, if you circle that, write that down, put it on your refrigerator, and say, I'm going through this horrible time, but God is going to do these things for me. Ladies and gentlemen. The preacher's lying to you.

59:52 There's no guarantee God's going to do any of that for you in a tangible, material way. And the point is this passage is not promising you anything nothing. This is demonstrating God made a covenant with Israel, and he keeps his covenant promises this whole thing, this whole thing is a mess. See when we look at this entire idea of the Desert School of self discovery from Chuckswindall. He presents this study as focusing on the idea of desert experiences or metaphorical periods of trial or isolation. This is supposedly intended for spiritual growth and self discovery. This may be relatable to many people. Some people may find it insightful, but I believe it relies significantly on an allegorical application. Rather than drawing directly from the scriptural content.

1:00:57 This study interprets literal experiences of Moses and the Israelites and the wilderness as something symbolic or personal, or an emotional desert that modern believers might face, such as illness or loneliness. This method risk imposing meaning on the text rather than extracting meaning from it. For example, Moses's time and Midian and Israel's wilderness journeys are described in this study as if they were templates for any kind of personal hardship believer's face, rather than a specific historical and philological event. Basically, much of the study that you're listening to and if you were to look at the PDF file, encourages readers to see themselves directly in Moses' experience, focusing on self discovery and personal growth. While there may be lessons to learn from biblical figures, the intense personalization here detracts from understanding the covenantal and redemptive purpose behind Israel's experience.

1:01:56 By interpreting wilderness as a place for God to reveal aspects about your life, self and himself, the study leans heavily into a mystical reading of the text, which not does not honor the historical and redemptive focus of the passage. For example, Deuteronomy A two speaks of God's testing and humbling of Israel to know their heart and reliance on Him, a lesson linked to their specific covenant relationship rather than a universal personal desert. In other words, everything happening there was God's purpose and plan for Israel. The whole thing is is just completely messed up. And I got far more notes here that I could look at to take this apart. But I want us to understand this. I want us to understand this. I got all kinds of other things I wanted to say here, other things I wanted to say, but I will say this right. This entire study is an example of isa Jesus rather than exe Jesus, and I'm going to break these down. ISA Jesus involves reading personal ideas, modern concepts, or desired meaning into the text, often without a clear connection to the author's original intent or the historical and cultural context of the passage, and not only the document the PDF file, but also the audio that we're listening to. The desert experience of Moses and Israel are used as symbolic representations of common human struggle, such as loneliness or hardship, and

1:03:28 are then applied to modern believers' lives This approach reads contemporary themes self discovery, personal desert into the text, which was not the intended meaning of the original author. Now Exit Jesus, by contrast, seeks to draw out the meaning inherent in the text by analyzing its original context, purpose, and message. If Exit Jesus were applied here, the study would focus more on understanding the specific reason why Moses and Israel were left into the wilderness within the context of God's covenant with Israel. Exegetical interpretation would explore the historical and philological reason behind these events, rather than generalizing them as personal lessons are metaphors for self discovery. The whole thing is is of Jesus. But yet that's the kind of preaching people want, but it destroys the text.

1:04:25 Now we're already over an hour. Let's just listen to a little bit. More, especially you who are in the desert. And the fourth thing he does verse twelve, he alone guides you. He hasn't taken his hand off of you. He is guiding you. And I like that word alone. There's no one else to guide when you're in the desert. There's no neat little place to find shade or relief, and so you are naked, you are shut up to God. For some of you, it may be a past of great success and good training, and suddenly you find yourself surrounded by a house full of little children, and you wonder how long? How long? Others of you may have enjoyed good health and strength through most of your life, And suddenly the doctor tells you, you know, I noticed there's a spot on your lung or I've discovered as a result of surgery in this biopsy. Uh, there's a malignancy here. And the feeling is as you reel with that information, where is God?

1:05:46 Hey, when you're reeling from that information, let me, as a preacher, say, but hey, God chose this desert for you. He chose the right dath you needed, the cancer you needed, the disease you needed, the injury you need, the tragedy you because that was the desert. Because God can't prepare you for your purpose, well, I mean, there's no other way God could prepare you for your purpose other than utterly and absolutely annihilating and destroying everything in your life. But hey, hey, hey, hey, don't get down, don't look down, don't be sad. Turn that that frown upside down, be happy. Tomorrow the sun will come out to everything's gonna be better because He's just doing all this to prepare you for the purpose. I mean, I mean, if you die of the cancer. I mean, I I don't know. I mean if you if you never walk it. I mean, I mean, I mean, yeah, you see, yeah, you hear my jadedness. See that's what happens when you're young and you hear this, You're like, yeah, prepare me. Come on. Yeah, It's like going to the gym. I'm gonna work out, and I'm gonna look at my abs now, woo, look at my Look at my legs, look at look at that, Look at my biceps.

1:06:52 Whoo. I've been working out in the gym. God's gonna put me in the in the desert. He's gonna prepare me, and I'm gonna come out, and then God's gonna use me do something tremendous, great, like lead an entire nation out of captivity. And then you kind of find out when maybe I'm just applying all of this in a way that has a zero to do with me. How can I cope? How can I handle this? For others? It's being benched because an underclassman can play better than you on the team. It's as simple as that. There are a number of you here who are single. I came across a piece in Eternity that was a part of an article on rejection. The writer Natalie Ray says this.

1:07:50 She calls it no lover. No lover makes my kiss his daily quest. No hand across the table reaches mind. No precious baby nestles at my breast, No one to need my love. Where is the sign that God, my Father loves me? Surely he creates this wealth of love to overflow. How could it be that none who wanted me has become mine? Why did I tell them? No? But do they really matter? All the wise? Could all the answers take away the pain? Or all the reasons really dry my eyes?

1:08:38 Though? From Heaven's court, No I would weep again. My God, you saved me from Hell's black abyss, Oh, save me from the tyranny of bitterness. You see, the. Desert can be that response of one that you love and he's gone or she's gone, and there's no promise that that one will ever return. It may be the day that you come in from work and your wife has left you the note she's gone. Then the desert starts, or you discover through a chain of events that your husband has been in fact unfaithful. That's a desert. And the most disillusioning time, the greatest time of building resentment and bitterness, as this has said, is at those moments.

1:09:39 But I want you to see, for the purpose of encouragement, that God does four things. When you are in the desert. He encircles you, he cares for you, He guards you like the pupil of his eye, and in fact he guides you. You haven't left him, nor has he left you. Perhaps more than ever before. He is closer to you now en route too. Unbelievable. First, you have the whole philosophical problem. All these horrible things happened to you, but God, God picked the desert for you. So like, did God just pick the desert because he knew it was going to happen? But he doesn't control what happened. Why wouldn't he didn't just stop it from happening? All right, there's all kinds of issues there. But then the second thing, he keeps saying that God does these things for us. See, when I was young, I would have I have written this in a notebook, and I could have been driving my car doing something and I would have heard swind On. I'd been like, oh, this is good. I would have pulled the car over, grabbed a notebook, and I would have written that down. Deuteronomy thirty two ten. All right, So he he led him about, he instructed him, he kept him as the apple of his eye. All right, all right.

1:10:58 Would I would have written these things down. I think he said four things. I'd have to break that down in the King James. That's for I got another translation, but you get the Yeah. I would have written those things down, and I'd been like, That's what God is gonna do for me. God's gonna do these things for me. God's gonna do things for me. And I would have been encouraged and I would have been fired up, and I'd have been ready to go. But after all these years, now I know what are you doing? That's not that's for them. That's what God did for Israel based off a covenant relationship. This is how God took care of them through the actual physical wilderness. God literally led them.

1:11:38 God literally provided for literal there's nothing figurative or allegorical, and what God did He did these things literally for them. This is Moses talking about what God had done for them literally materially, physically, not some allegorical metaphorical. Look, God's gonna do this, and God's gonna do this for me? Well, how does that even work? What does it even do? All? Me? See, after all this time, when I go back to listen to this, that would have brought me great joy at one time in my Christian life. I would have been so encouraged. I would have been so like, this is a man, and I would have been telling everyone about what I learned. I may even have had an opportunity to teach it. I would have taken those four points and broke them into an outline and taught them. Guess what I would have been doing is said Jesus, not exo Jesus, completely mishandling the word of God and in giving people a complete and totally fraudulent comfort. And that's what the church does. And that's why so many Christians wake up one day disillusioned, discouraged, bitter, depressed and saying, you know what, forget this trash, it doesn't work. Love to get your thoughts. Thank you for listening, everyone, have a great day. So frustrating. God bless