{"id":6280,"date":"2022-10-17T09:55:34","date_gmt":"2022-10-17T09:55:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/?p=6280"},"modified":"2022-10-17T09:55:34","modified_gmt":"2022-10-17T09:55:34","slug":"%ef%bb%bfcoming-up-from-the-wilderness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/?p=6280","title":{"rendered":"\ufeffComing up from the wilderness"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>Coming up from the wilderness<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>(J. C. Philpot, \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/www.gracegems.org\/Philpot\/coming_up_from_the_wilderness.htm\">Coming up from the Wilderness<\/a>\u201d 1857)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Who&nbsp;<em>is<\/em>&nbsp;this that cometh up from the wilderness, leaning upon her beloved?Song of Solomon 8:5<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>To come up from the wilderness, is to come up out<br>of OURSELVES; for we are ourselves the wilderness.<br>It is&nbsp;<strong>our wilderness heart<\/strong>&nbsp;that makes the world<br>what it is to us . . .<br>&nbsp; our own barren frames;<br>&nbsp; our own bewildered minds;<br>&nbsp; our own worthlessness and inability;<br>&nbsp; our own lack of spiritual fruitfulness;<br>&nbsp; our own trials, temptations, and exercises;<br>&nbsp; our own hungering and thirsting after righteousness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In a word,&nbsp;<strong>it is what passes in our own bosom<\/strong><strong>that makes the world to us a dreary desert.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Carnal people find the world no wilderness. It is an<br>Eden to them! Or at least they try hard to make it so.<br>They seek all their pleasure from, and build all their<br>happiness upon it. Nor do they dream of any other<br>harvest of joy and delight, but what may be repaid<br>in this \u2018happy valley\u2019, where youth, health, and good<br>spirits are ever imagining new scenes of gratification.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But the child of grace, exercised with a thousand<br>difficulties, passing through many temporal and<br>spiritual sorrows, and inwardly grieved with his own<br>lack of heavenly fruitfulness, finds the wilderness<br>within.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But he still comes up out of it, and this he does<br>by looking upward with believing eyes to Him who<br>alone can bring him out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He comes up out of his own&nbsp;<strong>righteousness<\/strong>, and<br>shelters himself under Christ\u2019s righteousness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He comes up out of his own&nbsp;<strong>strength<\/strong>,<br>and trusts to Christ\u2019s strength.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He comes up out of his own&nbsp;<strong>wisdom<\/strong>,<br>and hangs upon Jesus\u2019 wisdom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He comes up out of his own tempted, tried,<br>bewildered, and perplexed condition, to find rest<br>and peace in the finished work of the Son of God.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And thus he comes up out of&nbsp;<strong>the wilderness of<\/strong><strong>self<\/strong>, not actually, but experimentally. Every desire<br>of his soul to be delivered from his \u2018wilderness<br>sickening sight\u2019 that he has of sin and of himself<br>as a sinner. Every aspiration after Jesus, every<br>longing look, earnest sigh, piteous cry, or laboring<br>groan, all are a&nbsp;<strong>coming up from the wilderness<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>His turning his back upon an ungodly world; renouncing<br>its pleasures, its honors, its pride, and its ambition;<br>seeking communion with Jesus as his chief delight;<br>and accounting all things but loss and rubbish for<br>the excellency of the knowledge of Jesus his Lord<br>as revealed to his soul by the power of God; this,<br>also, is&nbsp;<strong>coming up from the wilderness<\/strong>.\n\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Coming up from the wilderness (J. C. Philpot, \u201cComing up from the Wilderness\u201d 1857) Who&nbsp;is&nbsp;this that cometh up from the wilderness, leaning upon her beloved?Song of Solomon 8:5 To come up from the wilderness, is to come up outof OURSELVES; for we are ourselves the wilderness.It is&nbsp;our wilderness heart&nbsp;that makes the worldwhat it is to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,72,68],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6280","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-author-j-c-philpot","category-christ-and-his-church","category-christ-his-person-and-excellencies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6280","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=6280"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6280\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6281,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6280\/revisions\/6281"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6280"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6280"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shoalhavengospelchurch.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6280"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}