“Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil” (Matthew 4:1, NIV).
This statement is like a watermark. You have to hold it to the light of your own days to see that it is imprinted across your soul.
Though we follow Him, people close to you will say, “It’s your own fault,” and will lend you no aid, no mercy, and no help. They fail to see that God is all powerful and the Holy Spirit can lead us straight into irony. As hard as this non-mercy from other people is to endure, it is actually okay—as you plainly see in this passage, the Holy Spirit is leading Christ in; and leading you and I in today. You followed God to this place—what else could you have done? Now you feel voided of God and wonder, “What is going on?”
It is not forever. It is about done.
In the core dark of the wilderness, you will find it difficult to hear from God, when it was God Who told you to go. You were following Him—flying, falling, now you feel abandoned, stuck, trapped. It is impossible to make sense of this “drying up like a brook” experience. Dangerous, it appears, when it is your own soul and personality. But seeds do it all the time—thus our biblical metaphor. They regenerate—impossible but for God, yet, the unexplainable is what we all live on, whether Christ or natural food.
What is the original language definition of “wilderness”? What is it in the midst of our regular days for?
A “wilderness” or “erémosis” is a type of Jerusalem (or any city), without Christ (“bereft of Christ’s presence, instruction and aid”).[1]
In this bereft estate, we see disasters surface—the world on fire: chaos; confusion; a mass turning from God; a fight; nonsensicality. Things all hard to understand.
But what of the Christian—abandoned (seemingly) by both God and family? As if things weren’t hard enough… But, the wilderness experience is DESIGNED TO BE a forced wait upon God wherein we lose our power as if our life is draining out. You see and sense such a foreign sorrow.
This seed dying, or “dying to self” is enigmatically mentioned in Christian circles (and has been for over 2,000 years) but cannot be directly taught man-to-man. It is, putting it bluntly, weird; strictly unique/isolate; and, definitely not what is “socially” expected and expounded upon regarding the Christian life. However, it is entirely biblical (read John 12:24-26). And, as such, will be a part of each Christian life.
When one is to be reaping, one is sowing themselves. You watch you go into the ground. You and I cannot answer our own prayers in the wilderness, in any way, shape, or form. We are roped off…as the intensity of the crisis in the world magnifies.
Though tiptoed around in church as much as the Book of Job, “dying to self” is as if you have died at some level; the loneliness is palpable. You cannot any more reach the ones you are trying to love than if you were on opposite sides of the ocean. You have disappeared from all you have known and the dividing reason is so out of the ordinary, so extraordinary, you cannot put it into words. There are no advisors, no mentors, no one to say to you, “This is what is happening…” There cannot be, for the whole point of the wilderness and yourself succumbing to the second side of the trial is for you to know, experientially for yourself, your absolute and total powerlessness apart from God. He will drag you out and by the time this is over, you will understand God’s point very well (see John 15:5). The Holy Spirit alone is your Counselor. The power of the Resurrection is only found in Christ and Him crucified (read 1 Corinthians 2:1-7).
While in the wilderness, the world around us seems a desert, a volatile place, a folding leaf, and we wonder if there is room in it for us anymore. Evil seems overpowering, but as Winston Churchill stated, “never give in, except to convictions of honour and good sense. Never yield to force. Never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.”[2]
None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. However, as it is written: “What no eye has seen, what no ear has heard, and what no human mind has conceived”—the things God has prepared for those who love him—these are the things God has revealed to us by his Spirit. The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God (1 Corinthians 2:8-10, NIV).
For a second definition, “wilderness” or “erémosis” means the “end of persons”—(sanctification, consecration, to an extreme) and it can happen to a believer in the most crowded and unnatural of places. Very loving, kind, and gracious, this believer is “deserted by others; deprived of aid and protection of others, especially of friends, acquaintances, kindred…[they are] bereft.”[3] Blame or accusation from the enemy occurs (“What did you expect? You are overboard in Christian things…”). Envy occurs. Bitterness occurs. There is misdirection, ill-advisement, as the enemy releases poisons into the atmosphere. All of this unpleasantness is called, “temptation”.
“Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil” (Matthew 4:1, NIV).
Like Christ, know and say, “It is written” in the Word of God and go with that. Nothing else will do. As far as feeling abandoned by others, honestly, God knows in the forced isolation of one seed dying all by itself, that that seed is better off if no one knows where it is or what it is going through. Seeds in the ground, butterflies in cocoons, and babies in wombs are often far better off in God’s good neglect.
Take care you do not confuse God’s protection with abandonment.
Preachers are often better off in the wilderness where they can cry out, purely.
You thought the catapult to get here was surely enough of a test—I know. However, the wilderness “is ironically also where God richly grants His presence and provision for those seeking Him. The limitless Lord shows Himself strong in the "limiting" (difficult) scenes of life.”[4] We have to wait on Him for the signal and, until that moment, we cannot go. When you wait on this you truly do feel that you won’t survive for “Man does not live by bread alone…but by every Word that proceeds from the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4, NIV). You are waiting for Him to speak, Let there be Light in your new world. In the interim, you become so desperate for God to speak a word and open a gate that you feel you cannot stand it—I know. We think we are doing quite poorly spiritually, but things here are not as they seem.
This is a dour message unless the person reading it is going through it;
then, it is an absolute lifeline.
You see, the Holy Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness first.
He was a man of sorrows and so identifies with us when the Joy seems afar off.
“He was despised and rejected by men, a man of suffering who knew what sickness was. He was like someone people turned away from; he was despised, and we didn’t value him” (Isaiah 53:2-4, CSB).
Perhaps, in the wilderness that holds no natural beauty, the most beautiful thing is that we come to value Christ above everything else
and no longer take Him for granted.
To keep readers from dropping off the page like flies, here is where most modern Bible commentary would pivot and encourage you with a commercial or artificial encouragement, but that falls as flat as the desert around you. Therefore, I will not do that, because no matter what I write or say to sugarcoat the wilderness experience, God will seal it all off. This is the very point I am making—no person can help you. Only God can and He will. The wilderness, I will state again, is miraculously done, yes, but it is also strange.
“The LORD will rise up as he did at Mount Perazim, he will rouse himself as in the Valley of Gibeon— to do his work, his strange work, and perform his task, his alien task” (Isaiah 28:21, NIV).
God has to prepare you for spiritual regeneration.
It is the second phase trial after the one that nearly crushed you, the reversal, the ebb and flow as the ocean comes back to your feet, that you find amazing. You are a captivated witness. God alone can send an angel up your dirty street and get you out of your manmade prison. No man can—God will see to it. Moreover, He will not tell you when you are due to be released—just due time if you do not faint about losing your life and nearly your senses (see Galatians 6:9-10; Acts 10:10; 1 Corinthians 2:16; 2 Corinthians 12:2; Romans 12:21; Mark 27:46; John 11:25-26). It could be ‘round the corner. It could be decades. Satan will whisper, never. While your holy revelation, your seasoned discernment cannot be conjured, it is real, and sure, and God will bring it to you. Again I say, God’s voice is the only thing you are living on and that can only ever come from Him and Him alone. He will speak to you again. He will free you again.
The “wilderness”—
this is the experience wherein we “wait on God”
and “die to self” simultaneously.
It likely does not get much more serious than this until we go home to be with the Lord. What is being decided while you are in the dark is your ministry life once God wakes you up. We are, all of us, Christians at His absolute mercy. God is all-powerful, and He alone holds that title. How else, other than a wilderness trial, can He teach us reverence and show out as really real once again in our life. We are the ones who have to grow fresh spiritual eyes, like the wings of a butterfly trapped in a confining, isolated, dark and mysterious cocoon.
Thank God that He does show us the Bible, specifically, that Paul was in a prison; Peter was in a prison—likewise, we! We are not above our Master and Christ was in chains here—spiritually, physically, in every single way, “dying” each day for all intents and purposes, not only on the cross. If He, sinless as He was, was led into the desert, the “erémosis” and experienced ALL this word means, and, so led to that estate BY THE HOLY SPIRIT, to be tested and tried, why would we not be (Matthew 10:24-26)? Jesus Himself could perhaps not hear from God for that period of time, or perhaps not as clearly as normal (as His company was the enemy of God!), but He had the WORD to cling to, to believe in, to stand upon (vis, It is written.). The disastrous, deconstructing works and evil temptations of Satan were broadcast in front of Him, but...
Jesus held to His convictions.
He spoke the Word.
“…Then the devil left Him, and angels came and attended Him” (Matthew 4:11, NIV).
Regardless of how dark the darkness is all around, God will ALWAYS send Light. When the light and mercy and voice of God broke through in Jesus’ case, by God’s will, timing, and decisions/acts, then, and only then, the light dawned inside Jesus and He began to preach to others, and that with POWER never before seen on the earth (Matthew 4:12, NIV).
The same resurrection Power is with you and with me.
“Land of Zebulun and land of Naphtali, the Way of the Sea, beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles—the people living in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned” (Matthew 4:15-16, NIV).[5]
REFERENCES:
The Christian Standard Bible. Copyright © 2017 by Holman Bible Publishers. Used by permission. Christian Standard Bible®, and CSB® are federally registered trademarks of Holman Bible Publishers, all rights reserved.
Scripture quotations marked (NIV) are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.comThe “NIV” and “New International Version” are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™
[1] Thayer’s Greek Lexicon. Strong’s NT 2048. Biblesoft. Inc., accessed Jan. 12, 2025: https://biblehub.com/greek/2048.htm
[2] Churchill, W. 2003. Never Give In! The Best of Winston Churchill’s Speeches. Hyperion: NY.
[3] Thayer’s. Ibid.
[4] Helps Word Studies. 2021. 2048. Discovery Bible, accessed Jan. 12, 2025: https://biblehub.com/greek/2048.htm
[5] To examine the meaning of place names in this passage (Matthew 4:15-16), we have “Land of Zebulun” which means “one who dwells…” And, Naphtali, which means “struggling”; the “Way of the Sea” which means “the vast unknown” and unpredictability, perhaps even danger; the “Jordan”, or beyond it rather, which signifies a “crossing over” from one’s natural life into a life of public ministry (and also the physical place on earth where Christ did this once baptized); and, “Galilee” which means a circle to travel, patterned by those who minister to others and proclaim the message of Christ even today. In other words, this passage of the light breaking through a darkness that dark (a wilderness, or “erémosis” where we are abandoned by others, and seemingly for a time, God, in a city without Christ) is occurring when we are one who dwells in struggle and ambiguity, or potential danger, and crosses over into ministry and away from our previous lifestyle (no matter how good, evil, normal or abnormal it may have been). Dying to self is essentially a baptism (#2, by fire of the Holy Spirit) where believers give everything God asks for up so we can minister to Him. Now you are My minister… It is hard because it is unexpected, but it is the pattern of Christ. We would like to accept it well, without going through all the negative and dry emotions in the howling wilderness, but “temptation must come” so God can rescue us again and, in the process, teach us full dependence upon Him. Without this more intensive and direct lesson (which can last a decade or more), our “preaching” is like speaking into an empty can with no one else on the line. Moreover, we cannot go about Galilee when we are strapped to the people and places we love and cannot reach the people who do not love God yet. Pieced together, the meaning of these place names instructs us today that, spiritually, internally, and miraculously, when a seed dies and you find yourself in the driest spiritual estate of your life, the biblical metaphor is exact and the Truth of God’s Word has found you. Tiny seed dead in the ground, God knows where He buried you. God will, at some point when the conditions are right, send an angel to refresh you (Matt. 4:11), send an angel to open your prison gate (Acts 12:5-17). Such fresh-air-energy, somehow, God uses to compel us to preach, not at a practice level, but to feed a crowd with words. How do we know this? It is a pattern in the Bible. It is a promise in the Bible. And, God is no respecter of persons (Romans 2:11). But before all of this, it does get very dark indeed.
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