Lessons From the Laps

Everyone knows that Israel spent forty years as nomads in the Sinai Desert because they didn’t have faith enough to enter the Promised Land. “The word they heard did not profit them, because it was not united by faith in those who heard…Let us therefore be diligent to enter that rest (which faith brings), lest anyone fall through following the same example of disobedience” (Heb. 4:2, 11). Several years ago, when one was slow to believe and keeps making the same mistakes, someone would say, “That means another lap around the desert.” Some people spend their whole lives in the desert, just as that generation of Israelites did, simply because they will not step out in faith and follow Christ. I don’t want to dwell on the desert in this essay, but I do want to share some lessons to be learned from the “laps” around it.

1. In the desert you learn that God means what He says. Most folk never learn to trust God. They are like the man who said, “I lived for myself, I thought for myself; for myself and none beside, as if Jesus had never lived, as if He had never died.” Or like William Ernest Henley who, having lost a foot early in life from a bone disease, thirty years later languished in a hospital for three years, having the other leg removed and then died at the age of 54. Yet in his Invictus he wrote
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
Then there was the salesman I tried to talk to about the Bible when I was a new Christian. He said, “I’ll go along with the Bible as long as it goes along with me.” He went his rebellious way and I went to Bible College. I would later learn the lessons of the desert.

2. In the desert you learn that one must live by faith in Christ. “We walk by faith and not by sight” (II Cor. 5:7). Christ is not just a part of our Sunday life; He must be our total life. Paul wrote, “You have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, Who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory” (Col. 3:3, 4). Christ must be in our lives, our homes, our relationships and our activities. A few years ago people were wearing T-shirts with the letters WWJD, “what would Jesus do,” printed on them. We would do well to ask that question daily, and then live by the answer.

3. In the desert you learn the need of following the Bible as your road map. Jesus said in His prayer to the Father, “Sanctify them in the truth; Thy word is truth” (John 17:17). One may suppose he is following the Bible but if he ends up in the desert he will realize that he has been led by his own preferences or the church’s interpretation of the Bible and not by the clear teaching of the Bible. Our concern is not, “what does the Bible say to the church” but “what does it say to me.” And you will never know unless you study it for yourselves. If any man is willing to do His will, he shall know of the teaching, whether it is of God, or whether I speak of myself” (Jesus in John 7:17). You can know the truth first hand, and you must learn it for yourself; you cannot totally rely on a fallible church to interpret the infallible Word of God for you. David said, “I opened my mouth wide and panted, for I longed for Your commandments” (Ps. 119:131). And Jesus spoke of hungering and thirsting for righteousness (Matt. 5:6). Has there ever been a time in your live when you just had to know what the Bible says on a given subject? Have you learned to use a concordance and find it for yourself?

4. In the desert you understand that you must live what you learn or lose it. Some are “always learning but never able to come to the knowledge of the truth” (II Tim. 3:7).” Live what you learn until it becomes a way of life with you.

These are lessons you must learn, even if you have to learn them in the desert. And there you may have to make many laps. You should learn these lessons now while they are on your mind. If you fail to do so, unbelief is all you have—or will ever have. All of Israel went into the Sinai Desert but only two of the middle-age men of that generation, Joshua and Caleb, had faith be delivered and to enter the Promised Land. The rest died there. Take heed lest you fall through following the same example of disobedience.