{"id":1080,"date":"2011-07-16T09:49:37","date_gmt":"2011-07-16T09:49:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/?p=1080"},"modified":"2011-07-16T09:49:37","modified_gmt":"2011-07-16T09:49:37","slug":"extracts-from-the-wilderness-wanderer-by-joseph-philpot-1867","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/?p=1080","title":{"rendered":"Extracts from The Wilderness Wanderer By Joseph Philpot, 1867"},"content":{"rendered":"

Extracts from The Wilderness Wanderer \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0By Joseph Philpot, 1867
\n\u201cThey wandered in the wilderness in a solitary way; they found no city to dwell in. Hungry and thirsty, their soul fainted in them. Then they cried unto the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them out of their distresses. And he led them forth by the right way, that they might go to a city of habitation. Oh that men would praise the Lord for his goodness, and for his wonderful works to the children of men! For he satisfies the longing soul, and fills the hungry soul with goodness!\u201d\u00a0Psalm 107:4-9<\/a>
\n\u201cHungry and thirsty, their soul fainted in them.\u201d Their wanderings produced the necessary effect of hunger and thirst; for the wilderness gave them no food to eat, no water to drink. This was a terrible state to be in. The pangs of hunger and thirst are acute enough anywhere; but in a wilderness they are little short of death. But I must not here enlarge. Let us view it spiritually. Wilderness wanderings had given them a spiritual appetite; and thus they were brought under that gracious promise, \u201cBlessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness.\u201d
\nThey needed food which the world could not give; they needed water that the world could not supply. Having tasted that the Lord was gracious, having been fed in some small degree with heavenly manna, it put them out of taste with earthly food, They might have all the world could offer if they liked. But the world cannot give them the heavenly food which their souls long for. It cannot give sweet and precious views of Christ, cannot apply promises to their heart, cannot bestow upon them manifestations of the Person and work of Jesus, or drop one drop of His love and blood into their soul. It is the lack of these divine realities which makes them hunger and thirst. It is for these testimonies, these blessings, these manifestations, this sweet assurance of pardoning love, with the witness of the Spirit to their spirit that they are God\u2019s children, that they inwardly long and pine. They are not hungering and thirsting after such earthly things as worldly hearts seek and delight in, but in the enjoyed favor and presence of the Lord. But this is often either delayed or given in a scanty measure; and what was the consequence?
\nThat \u201ctheir soul fainted in them.\u201d They hungered so long; they thirsted so long; the wilderness was so long and wearisome; the sun beat so hotly upon their head; their feet were so galled with the stones; the sand so got into their shoes, that having no food brought and no water given, the effect was that their soul fainted in them. It was in their feelings as if they must die, must languish away; as if there was nothing in those who could keep them alive, because they had not the food they longed for, nor the water their souls desired. How distressing was all this; but what blessed marks of life. Those dead in sin, or dead in a profession, are not thus hungering and thirsting after Christ. They are not crying out for Christ; not thirsting for the water of life, for the visitations of the presence of God, for a smile of Jesus\u2019 face, for a touch of Jesus\u2019 hand, for a whisper of Jesus\u2019 love.
\nNow have you ever thus hungered for the Lord of life and glory? Have you ever thus thirsted for the water of life; ever thus felt faint and exhausted because no word was given, no promise applied, no blood sprinkled, no love shed abroad? If not, can you be one of these wilderness wanderers? But on the other hand, if you say, \u201cI do hunger after Christ; I do thirst for the water of life; my soul is often very faint and weary, and I am languishing for a word from His gracious lips; but I find this to be a wilderness world, and myself a wanderer in it\u2013mine is a solitary path, and I find no city to dwell in;\u201d these are marks that God Himself has consecrated as evidences of life divine; these tally with the description given by the blessed Spirit of a wilderness wanderer; and the Lord has written these things in the word of His grace to encourage those who need encouragement.
\n\u201cThen they cried unto the Lord in their trouble.\u201d What a mercy it is, that the Lord does put a sigh and a cry into the bosom of His people; what a mercy to have a spirit of prayer. I do believe when God is pleased to quicken the soul into life divine, He always gives with that life divine, a spirit of prayer; and I believe also though that spirit of prayer may sink at times very low, it never is extinguished out of a believing heart.
\n\u201cAnd he delivered them out of their distresses.\u201d How He does this is blessedly intimated in a verse of the Psalm before us\u2013\u201dHe sent his Word and healed them.\u201d Thus in due time He sends a healing word, gives a gracious smile, drops into their soul a sweet manifestation of His goodness and mercy, and thus delivers them out of their distresses. They had been in a very distressed state of mind because they could not see their signs; and they scarcely knew where they were or what they were. But when the Lord appears in them and for them, He delivers them out of their distresses. One smile, one touch, one soft whisper, one intimation\u2013\u201dI have loved you and given myself for you;\u201d one breaking in of His presence and His power; one manifestation of pardoning mercy,\u2013let the soul have but this, and it will say, \u201cIt is enough, Lord, it is enough; I want no more.\u201d
\nAnd what is the end of all this leading and guiding? \u201cThat they might go to a city of habitation\u201d\u2013the new Jerusalem, the glorious city which has foundations whose builder and maker is God. There, some of our friends have gone before; there they dwell as citizens of that blessed city which is all of pure gold, as clear as glass; a city which has no need of the sun, neither of the moon to shine in it, for the glory of the Lord lightens it, and the Lamb is the light thereof. The Lord has led forth our dear friends, whom He has taken out of our midst that they might go to this city of habitation, inhabited by the spirits of just men made perfect. This is the city of habitation where the saints will dwell forever. And the Lord is leading forth each and all of His wilderness wanderers by the right way that He may bring them in the same way into His eternal presence, and to the enjoyment of those pleasures which are at His right hand for evermore.<\/p>\n

Out of the wilderness!\u2028\u2028Once you and I pined in the wilderness, and sighed after God\u2028from a barren land. All around us was the wilderness of this\u2028world, a howling wilderness of danger, and need, and disorder. \u2028\u2028We said of the world at its very best, \u201cVanity of Vanities,\u2028All Is Vanity.\u201d Do you remember how you roamed, seeking rest\u2028and finding none? Your way was the path of darkness, which\u2028leads unto death. Then you were poor and needy, and sought\u2028water and there was none, and your tongue cleaved unto the\u2028roof of your mouth for thirst. \u2028\u2028Then came the Lord that bought you, and he sought you until\u2028he brought you into the gardens of his love, where he\u2028satisfied you with the river of the water of life, and\u2028filled you with the fruits of his Spirit, and now you\u2028dwell in a goodly land.
\n\u201cAnd you shall remember all the way which the Lord your God led you these forty years in the wilderness, to humble you, and to prove you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments, or not. And he humbled you, and allowed you to hunger, and fed you with manna, which you knew not, neither did your fathers know; that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord, does man live.\u201d\u00a0Deuteronomy 8:2-3<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Extracts from The Wilderness Wanderer \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0By Joseph Philpot, 1867 \u201cThey wandered in the wilderness in a solitary way; they found no city to dwell in. Hungry and thirsty, their soul fainted in them. Then they cried unto the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them out of their distresses. And […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1080","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-author-j-c-philpot"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1080","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1080"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1080\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1081,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1080\/revisions\/1081"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1080"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1080"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1080"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}