Christ’s Footsteps in the Wilderness by I. E. Kimball

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Takoma Park Station, Washington, D.C. · Sep 14, 1916

Christ’s Footsteps in the Wilderness

By I. E. Kimball

I. E. KIMBALL

Those who determine to “follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth,” find his footsteps leading to the wilderness of temptation. None of us can escape the ordeal. “I will bring you into the wilderness of the people, and there will I plead with you face to face. Like as I pleaded with your fathers in the wilderness of the land of Egypt, so will I plead with you, saith the Lord God.” Eze. 20: 35, 36.

Such an experience is positively necessary; and those who come forth victorious in the trial are invariably Calebs and Joshuas.

The Saviour was buffeted in his growing, formative period, even as was Israel in Egypt. But when he laid by his tools at Nazareth, and went forth on his great mission to cast down and out the dragon and his host, to break his power and annihilate his kingdom, the hosts of hell understood the danger that confronted them. Could his love for the Father and his allegiance to truth be broken? Might his integrity be shaken? These questions were settled in the wilderness of temptation. But following that experience Satan turned quickly to attack in a different way, and followed him as a liar and murderer, as a roaring lioness bereft of her whelps. All manner of evil was reported about him, and men were inspired to hatred, jealousy, and madness, so that the cordon of hate was drawn about the Son of God. Such was the experience of Christ, and such will be the experience of every true follower, whose integrity cannot be shaken. The hill we climb becomes steeper and more difficult to the end. The conflict waxes, but never wanes, in the battle for truth. But God protects his own.

The wilderness of trial is the fitting-up place for great conflicts. Caleb, that tried, valiant saint of old, whose heart was so true at the beginning, and who doubtless might have passed the wilderness period quickly, was strong and lion-hearted to take the whole hill country of the Anakims, with cities “great and fortified,” and men before whom the Israelites were as pygmies. At eighty-five years of age he was strong to lay low the giants who had terrorized Israel more than forty years before.

The wilderness is a test of integrity. Lying, whispering spirits are permitted to try the candidates for victory. This word “victory” is otherwise rendered “salvation.” Lying, frog-like, peeping, muttering spirits whisper lust and passion to the ear, and thousands are enticed. They speak of riches and sensuous pleasures and personal ambitions. Thus thousands are led astray. They ply their arts according to the character of the man, some on this weak point, and some on that, to lead the candidate for victory over the line of perfect integrity in doing “always those things that please him,” to please themselves in some measure. And when they so compromise themselves, sin and death still hold dominion over them. Many, many go on sinning and repenting, turning their backs and then their faces to God, pleasing themselves, and seeking to please God also, following a little of the upward way, but unwilling to take advanced steps.

There is strife for the preëminence, as with Korah and Dathan. All sorts of murmuring and mingling with idolaters, a thousand and one things, intervene to block the way to further advancement. Such ones seem content to live and die in the wilderness. Though some of these may and will be saved through a spiritual resurrection, yet now such ones have no true sense of the joys of victory and salvation. They seem to think it is the appointed portion of all men to live in a partial hope and a partial despair; to live in mists and darkness with alternating hopes and fears. The God of love will do all that he can for these. But this is not the way to follow Christ and to please God.

Brother, sister, how are you to follow Christ’s footsteps in the wilderness?—By praying as he prayed, by resisting temptations as he also resisted, by laying fast hold of the word of Jehovah and never letting it go, living by “every word” of God, not by part of his words. You must push ahead for victory. Hold faith as Christ held it, and hope as he hoped.

New York City.