Young People's Work

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Dec 7, 1911

Young People's Work

Conducted by the Young People's Missionary Volunteer Department of the General Conference

M. E. KERN — Secretary

MATILDA ERICKSON — Corresponding Secretary

In the Desert With God

In these days of hurry and bustle, we find ourselves face to face with a terrible danger; there is no time to be alone with God. The world is running fast; we live in what is called the “age of progress.” “You know we must keep pace with the times,” the world says. And this spirit of the world has not confined itself to the world. It is, alas! to be found among the saints of God; and what is the result? There is no time to be alone with God; and this condition is immediately followed by no inclination to be alone with him. And what next? Surely the question does not need an answer. Can there be any condition more deplorable than that of a child of God who has no inclination to be alone with his Father?

This “desert life,” as we may call it, has an importance that can not be overvalued. Let us turn to the pages of God’s own Book, for we can turn nowhere else if we are seeking light on this subject. On scanning its precious pages, we find that the men of God—God’s mighty men—were those who had

been in “the school of God,” as it has been well called; and his school was simply this: “in the desert alone with Himself.” It was there they got their teaching. Far removed from the din and bustle of the haunts of men, distant alike from human eye and ear, there they met alone with God; there they were equipped for the battle. And when the time came that they stood forth in public service for God, their faces were not ashamed; nay, they had faces as lions. They were bold and fearless, yea, and victorious for God; for the battle had been won already in the desert alone with him.

If it is an Abraham we look at, we find him sweetly communing with his God, far away yonder in the plains of Mamre, sitting in his tent door in the heat of the day (Gen. 18:1), while his worldly nephew is keeping pace with the spirit of the age in ungodly Sodom. If it is a Joseph, we find him at least two full years in God’s school—although it was Egypt’s dungeon—before he stepped up to teach her senators wisdom (Ps. 105:22), and to “save much people alive” (Gen. 50:20). If it is a Moses, we find him at God’s school in the back of the desert (Ex. 3:1); and then, but not till then, he appears publicly as a deliverer of the people of God. If it is a David, the wilderness for him is the school of God. There he slays the lion and the bear (1 Sam. 17:34-36), when no human eye is near. He gets the victory alone with God. Fresh from God’s school, he steps before the thousands of Israel; and while all Israel follows Saul, the people’s man, “trembling,” there is one there who trembles not; and he is the one who has been at God’s school in the wilderness alone with him. Surely little wonder, then, that the Lord wrought a great victory in Israel that day! But why multiply instances from the Book of God? We might tell of an Elijah, a bold witness for God, who spent more time alone with his God than in standing in the place of public testimony, and who found the solitude of Cherith (1 Kings 17:3) and the quiet seclusion of Zarephath (verse 9) a needed training ere he delivered the message of God. We might tell of a John the Baptist, who was in the deserts till the day of his showing unto Israel (Luke 1:80); of the great apostle Paul, whose journey to Arabia seems to have been for no other purpose than to be at God’s school in the desert (Gal. 1:17).

But from the instances we have already mentioned, nothing can be clearer than this, that if you and I are to be of any use to God,—if we would glorify him on earth,—we must have time to be alone with him. If we “can’t get time,” we must take it. Whoever or whatever is put off, God must not be put off. We must have time,—every one of us, “gifted” or “not gifted,”—we must have time to be alone with God. It is in the closet that the “lions” and “bears” must be slain. It is in the secret presence of God, with no one near but him, that the spiritual Agags must be brought out and hewn in pieces before the Lord (1 Sam. 15:33). Then, when we appear before our brethren or the world, we shall find ours to be the “strong confidence” which is the portion of all who have to do with God in secret. And the “Goliaths” shall be slain; no doubt of that. And God’s work shall be done; no doubt of that either. We need not fear that God will not use us. It is only by being in God’s school that he can use us—not perhaps in the dazzling way that the world and many Christians admire; but in his own way,—in a way that shall most honor him.

But the Lord makes all these things clear to us while in the desert alone with himself. It is only then we really do God’s work; it is only then we do it in God’s way; it is only then we do the very things God has fitted us for, and at the very time appointed of the Father. What secrets we get from the Lord in the wilderness with him! And if we care not for the secret of his presence, what cares he for all our boasted service? It is we he wants; and it is only service flowing out of the joy of his presence, that is worthy of the name. It is only such service that shall stand the test of the judgment, and bring joy in the day of Christ that we have not run in vain, neither labored in vain.

May each one of us have an ever-open ear to the Master’s voice when he says to us, “Come ye yourselves apart into a desert place,” remembering that though he were the Son of the Father, we find him time after time departing “into a solitary place,” and there praying, although in doing so he had to get up “a great while before day.” The Faithful Witness himself, as well as his faithful and trusted servants in every age, required a desert experience,—a wilderness teaching alone with God; and, beloved, so do we.—Selected.