WILDERNESS PEOPLE

Genesis chapter 12




Today we are walking in: Wilderness People






Exodus 5:1


And afterward Moses and Aaron went in, and told Pharaoh, Thus saith the LORD God of Israel, Let my people go, that they may hold a feast unto me in the wilderness. H4057








WILDERNESS






Today we look to the word-WILDERNESS-H4057 midbar--wilderness pasture; uninhabited land; a pasture (i.e. open field, whither cattle are driven)--an uninhabited plain fit for feeding flocks, not a desert--a pasture









The Torah testifies...............


Numbers 9:1


And the LORD spake unto Moses in the wilderness H4057 of Sinai, in the first month of the second year after they were come out of the land of Egypt, saying,







The prophets proclaim..................




Jeremiah 31:2


Thus saith the LORD, The people which were left of the sword found grace in the wilderness; H4057 even Israel, when I went to cause him to rest.








The writings bear witness...........................




Joshua 1:4


From the wilderness H4057 and this Lebanon even unto the great river, the river Euphrates, all the land of the Hittites, and unto the great sea toward the going down of the sun, shall be your coast.




Wilderness People


We see things not as they are, but as we are.


Israel's life at the end of a whip ended with their deliverance, but the whip-beaten thoughts from their four centuries of oppression followed them into the Red Sea.
I can almost imagine what Israel's physical forty-year crossing of Sinai must have looked like from Yah's point of view. The terrain was etched in my mind the day I looked down from my airliner seat while flying the short distance between Israel and Cairo.


The hot desert sun that I felt while traveling that ground on foot was the sun Moses felt burning on his back.


The dust and barren hills we saw were viewed and even hiked on by the massive Hebrew horde.


The Books of Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers fill in my imagination's blanks with the actual account of what transpired thirty-four hundred years ago when the elder slaves of Moses' wilderness expedition failed in their attempt at freedom and died in Sinai's dust.


But there were also those who did make it to the other side of the Jordan. In this chapter we will look at the lessons we can learn from both groups-the parents and the younger generation of Israelites. The truths about the parents are important because they warn us against the pitfalls of oppressive and rebellious thinking. But the truths about the children are just as important-they can help us break out of our bondages.


The parallels between individuals and the developing process of nations and the Hebrew's Egyptian exodus are amazing in their similarities. Let's do some wandering now along Israel's wilderness roads.


RESPONSIBLE LIVING BEGINS WITH A PROMISE


The first lesson Israel teaches us is that Yah's call to responsible living always begins with a promise. Before Israel moved into Egypt under the direction and care of Jacob's son Joseph, the family's patriarch, Abraham, was given a promise:


I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you... all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.


There was a famine in the land of Israel, so Joseph, who had been sold into Egyptian slavery and was eventually promoted to be Pharaoh's prime minister because of his management skills, invited his family to eat and dwell in the safety of Egypt. After Pharaoh and Joseph died, a new Egyptian king who didn't know about Joseph enslaved the Hebrews. But although the Israelites had now become enslaved in Egypt, Yah had not forgotten His promise to Abraham.


The way in which Yah handled the children of Israel is the way He still handles all individuals and nations. So let's look at two principles about the promises of Yah.


Yah Gives A Promise Before He Fulfills It To Create A Vision


This first principle makes sense, doesn't it? You don't promise something that has already been given. So the first important point we need to see in this chapter is that Yah always begins with the end result. He is always working toward the goal of your successful freedom, but He needs you to capture and believe the vision for it. Yah gives you a vision of freedom while you are in slavery.


The process of Israel's deliverance began with Abraham's promise, which established the Hebrew nation. But when it was time for their deliverance from Egyptian bondage, Yah renewed the promise-this time to Moses as he stood barefoot before Sinai's burning bush: "I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey" (Exod. 3:8).


Now, this was some kind of promise. Yah described to Moses the land He had promised Abraham as Abraham never heard it. Everything would be beautiful, perfect,prosperous, flowing with milk and honey, spacious and good. A vision is a promise of a preferred future, and Yah has promised the same to all mankind and to every nation.


Yah has promised every man, woman and child on earth a hope for the future and a heavenly experience. Every human was created to fulfill a promise. You are the product of a promise. But now note the second principle of Yah's manward promise:


Yah ALWAYS GIVES THE PROMISE WHILE You ARE STILL IN SLAVERY


Yah tells you His good news while you are in the middle of a bad experience. He tells you about freedom while you are in the midst of slavery. When He tells you about the top, you are lying at the bottom. Why? Because promises are always made for future fulfillment, and they are meant to bring hope. That's what hope is all about. A promise gives birth to vision. Promises give birth to faith.


Yah promised Abraham that he would become a great nation. But when the time came to fulfill that promise, the Israelites were struggling at the bottom of life's experience in Egyptian slavery. So in fulfillment of His promise, Yah raised up Moses, who accepted the management call to set the Hebrews free. A divine promise is more powerful than your predicament. Yah's promise was to take the people from slavery to freedom. He promised them milk and honey while they were eating garlic and onions. However, what He did not tell them was the process necessary to get them to freedom.


The Three Phases Of Freedom Along Responsibilities Road


Men, women and nations today must progress through the same three phases of deliverance in the process of freedomas Moses moved through to deliver the Israelites.
The road to responsibility runs through the highways of the world, down into the Red Sea, out into the wilderness and then through the Jordan River into the promised land. So the first phase of deliverance is bondage-or Egypt. The second phase is the wilderness. And the third phase is the crossing of the Jordan River into the promised land. Every nation and individual, small or great, young or old, must pass through these three phases on their way to true freedom. And as I pointed out in the previous teachings, if you can't overcome the realities of your past, a wilderness experience is all you can expect. True freedom is always a matter of the mind and heart.


The Egypt Phase


The Egypt phase is the time of oppression and bondage. Israel was in bondage in Egypt for over four hundred years. They were depressed, oppressed, suppressed and (some) probably possessed as slaves for ten generations. Look at their history as recorded in Exodus 1:


So they put slave masters over them to oppress them with forced labor, and they built Pithom and Rameses as store cities for Pharaoh. But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread; so the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites and worked them ruthlessly. They made their lives bitter with hard labor in brick and mortar and with all kinds of work in the fields; in all their hard labor the Egyptians used them ruthlessly.
-EXODUS 1:11-14


The daily burden and mistreatment of this enslaved people moved them to cry out for freedom daily. "The Israelites groaned in their slavery and cried out, and their cry for help because of their slavery went up to Yah" (Exod.2:23). Yah heard their cries according to verses 24-25:


Yah heard their groaning and he remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac and with Jacob. So Yah looked on the Israelites and was concerned about them.


Yah raised up a deliverer from the very palace halls of Egypt. Pulled from the bulrushes of the Nile by Pharaoh's daughter to be raised as her own, Moses would be Israel's deliverer. Called from the shepherd fields of Midian at the age of eighty, Yah would use him supernaturally as a forerunner of Yahusha to show all men how futile it is to attempt salvation in a natural sense. Moses, before he became a fugitive, attempted to deliver his people through his own strategy-and killed an Egyptian.


When Moses or his brother and ministry partner, Aaron, raised his simple shepherd staff, Yah turned it into a miraculous tool of deliverance. Great plagues were unleashed on Egypt to display Yah's divinity. As they left Egypt and entered the wilderness journey, the Red Sea opened, manna came down from heaven, pillars of fire and cloud kept them warm and cool respectively while guiding their way, water gushed out of rocks and clothes remained fresh and clean every step of the Hebrews' way. This was a shadow and type of salvation in Christ today, because mankind is saved by Yah's miraculous grace, not by religious works. Deliverance is always miraculous.


When Yahusha walked among men, He proved the reality of Yah's love and divinity through the many miracles Yah worked through Him. Yahusha walked on water, healed the sick, commanded fish in the lake to fill fishing nets, fed thousands miraculously, calmed storms with His word and raised the dead. Then He bled, died and rose again to save us without our permission. Mankind can't do a thing to save himself. Yahusha did it all. All we have to do is agree with Him, and He saves us. We can't die for ourselves, and there is no good work that can "earn" salvation. Yahusha did everything He needed to do to deliver us from sin (Egypt).


The miraculous signs that Yah performed when Moses lifted his staff brought down miraculous plagues that weakened Pharaoh and delivered Israel from their mud pens to the Sinai. There was nothing natural about their deliverance-it was miraculous. And this is exactly how Yah sets people free from their Egypt phase today-miraculously.


Today Yah sends the Holy Spirit to confirm His reality through miraculous signs and wonders, and He reaches into our hearts to make us new creations in our inner man. Paul writes:


Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!
-2 CORINTHIANS 5:17


Only Yah can do this. It's all a miracle. Then He leads us into the next phase of deliverance on the road to freedom through the miraculous parting of our own Red Sea.


The Red Sea Phase


The second phase on the road to freedom begins with the Red Sea deliverance phase, which always leads to the wilderness. Remember, Yah didn't take the Israelites directly from Egypt to Canaan. He took them to the wilderness to get Egypt out of them first.


It was in Egypt that Yah worked His delivering miracles. When the plagues of bloody water, frogs, gnats, boils, hailstones mixed with fire, locust and darkness fell upon the Egyptians, Israel was kept safe as the plagues hit all around them. But it was in Sinai that Yah worked His provisional miracles. The Sinai wilderness experience is characterized by Yah's miraculous provision.


So many teach Israel's wilderness experience as nothing more than an agonizing time of failed dreams and failure. And for the elder slave-minded Hebrews, for the most part that was true. But the wilderness was also where Yah comforted and provided miraculously for the Hebrews in abundance. It is during our early years of faith in the wilderness that we live on Yah's miraculous manna. Hedoes everything during that period without any contribution on our part. The same is true of nations. When Yah gives birth to a new nation, He provides a period of grace and wealth so they can learn and prepare for the responsibility of freedom.


First, Yah takes us from Egypt through His miracle power that parts the Red Sea.


Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and all that night the Most High drove the sea back with a strong east wind and turned it into dry land. The waters were divided, and the Israelites went through the sea on dry ground, with a wall of water on their right and on their left.
-EXODUS 14:21-22


Then once we are delivered from the oppressor and enter the wilderness, we receive Yah's miraculous bread from heaven as our daily food. In deliverance, Yah miraculously provides and meets our needs.


Then the Most High said to Moses, "I will rain down bread from heaven for you."
-EXODUS 16:4


If we are honest in our seeking and find ourselves in need of Yah's miracle power, He will bring water forth from a rock, where no water could naturally be.


I will stand there before you by the rock at Horeb. Strike the rock, and water will come out of it for the people to drink.
-ExODUS 17:6


And Yah will supernaturally provide what we need in the way of provision, including food, shelter and clothes.
Your clothes did not wear out and your feet did not swell during these forty years.
-DEUTERONOMY 8:4


Because of our baby faith in the wilderness, Yah extends much grace. Though the children of Israel continually cursed Yah, murmured at Moses and said they wanted to go back into Egypt, Yah continued to feed, clothe and provide them with free food and water-miraculously.


This is why the wilderness experience is characterized by miracles. The Israelites may have blundered around in the barren desert forty years while the Promised Land was only a month's walk away-but their needs were always met. And the same is true of the process of every type of salvation.


This principle is also true in the process of personal or national salvation and redemption. When you are first set free from the slavery of sin, there will be a lot of miracles in your life, ministry and business. Many people start a business and experience sudden prosperity. They get so excited in the first three months that they think millions are coming. But as time progresses, and they fail to mature in the things of Yah, the miraculous provision slowly dries up, and they soon wonder how they are going to keep the business open.


Do you remember when you first received salvation? You wanted to save the whole world, right? You had just been through a miracle experience, and you were so excited. You would pray for toothpaste, and it would come in the morning. Yah did everything for you. But now that you've been saved for several years, you wonder if Yah even thinks about your teeth.


When you are in Yah's wilderness experience you will always have free provisions. He will provide for you and take care of everything you need. It is during this period that many new converts think of Yah as Santa Claus. So did the Hebrew children in the wilderness.


You are sponsored by Yah in the wilderness. It is there that Yah underwrites everything, supplying every need-without accountability. And He will do it despite any sinful tendencies you drag in from the dark days of Egypt. Yah will feed you in the wilderness even if you murmur. Yah will bless you even if you sin. Yah will supply for you. He will take care of you even if you curse Him when you're walking out those early days. If you backbite, if you have jealousy, if you get involved in detestable things, Yah will still feed you and take care of your needs. Why? To keep His Word and integrity, to show you His nature and to confirm His love for you.However, most importantly, He gives you time and opportunity to renew your mind and change your slave spirit.


Perhaps you have been sinning, yet Yah has been blessing you. You've been squealing and squawking, and Yah has still been blessing. Why? Take a look around you. Do you see sagebrush and sand? Yes, you do, because you are in the wilderness. You are still a child growing up. Perhaps you've only been saved for a short time. Yah is still blessing you even in your sin. You are His young child, and despite your playing around, He is blessing you.


Wilderness people have been delivered from bondage, but they are not yet set free. The wilderness is a place of preparation for your freedom. The day will come when your miracles will cease, and you, by faith, will need to roll up your sleeves and start working out your salvation as a partner with Yah.


No matter what you think Yah wants to do with your life, no matter how many good things He has promised you, He will qualify you for them before He gives them to you. This is what the wilderness is for. It is a place of testing. Yah will qualify you for the promise. The wilderness will qualify you for Canaan.


Yah doesn't trust people He has just delivered-people who are still lazy and spiritually irresponsible. They don't know the Bible yet, so they can't manage effectively. They aren't creative or self-motivated in the things of Yah. They can't handle spiritual pressure, the struggles of life, the difficulties of living or the challenges of freedom outside of the oppressor's control. They constantly want others to take care of them. Yah won't allow that spirit to enter Canaan. Read His words to Moses concerning why He took the Israelites to the desert wilderness first:


If they face war, they might change their minds and return to Egypt.
-EXODUS 13:17


Verse 18 says, "So Yah led the people around by the desert road toward the Red Sea. The Israelites went up out of Egypt armed for battle."


Some of you are asking Yah to take you into what He showed you as your purpose. You want to open that business now. You want to start that school now. You want that ministry right now. But Yah may be telling you that He can't trust you with a business because you haven't learned how to manage your own life yet. So He is going to keep you in the wilderness until He can grow you up and teach you to manage.


Remember, Yah requires management. It is in the wilderness that Yah reveals His love. But one day, across Jordan, He will give you a talent. And those who learn to manage will successfully trade. The principle is: Promise demands preparation.


There are many people who are in ministry today who weren't placed there by Yah. Yah hadn't graduated them from Sinai, but they bought business cards anyway. That's why they are causing so much trouble in the ministry messing up, making mistakes, falling down. They gave themselves titles without passing Yah's wilderness test.


Yah will never give us what He hasn't qualified us to manage. So we have wilderness babies stumbling around in the promised land acting the part, raising money and living like the devil. Yah wants to bless us with what He promised, but it is the wilderness life that He has sanctioned that qualifies us for His entry to Canaan (freedom).


The Wilderness Test


When you ask Yah to fulfill His promise to you, you are simply asking Him to put you in class. The unspoken part of your prayer is, "Train me for it." If you ask Yah for something great, you also ask Him for great tribulation,testing, classroom experience and great wilderness challenges. These all qualify you for the answer that's on the way. If you try to bypass these maturing, confirming experiences, you make yourself "giant prey"-because Canaan will only bow to a mature child of Yah. (See Numbers 14.) Canaan (freedom) demands character, and character is built through time, tests and discipline.


So when you pray, wilderness epilgrim, make sure you understand that Yah will prepare you for the answer to that for which you are praying. You may want to restrict your prayer to "the will of Yah" as He knows it for you at the time, because if you start asking for things for which you aren't qualified, He won't give them to you. Instead, He wants to qualify you, and the qualifications may be so rough that you may tell Him to forget it. Whatever Yah promises you, He will qualify you for.


I know I would have probably told Yah to forget it if He asked me to go forward into certain areas of my ministry before I was qualified. If Yah would have told me to start moving on this before I was qualified, I probably would have embarrassed Him and lost my credibility around the world. I receive many speaking invitations that never would have come if I bought my business cards while still wandering in the wilderness. I had to trade with my talents before Yah would open those fruitful doors. And the same is true for you.


Remember, the journey from Egypt to Canaan should have taken the camp of the Israelites about forty days. After they left Mt. Sinai, where Yah called Israel to worship and Moses received the Law, the people walked a large circle in the wilderness before reaching Kadesh Barnea, where they sent out a spying party into the Promised Land. But ten of the twelve spies weren't ready for entry, and they came back with a bad report:


But the men who had gone up with him said, "We can't attack those people; they are stronger than we are."


The report was so deadly to those who heard it that they banded together and said, "We should choose a leader and go back to Egypt" (Num. 14:4).


Because of the influence of these ten unprepared spies, it took forty long wandering years to finally cross over the Jordan. The ten spies-and everyone they influenced-had to die in the wilderness before their children could enter into the Promised Land.


The Bible says the Israelites kept failing the class. They couldn't graduate, and because they couldn't graduate, Yah kept taking them back to the same lessons.


Some of us have experienced that. We fail. We avoid responsibility. We sidestep the challenges. We take a shortcut through the training and end up right back where we started, marching in circles with a hope of Yah, but living in rebellious defeat.


We all try to avoid some trials. But Yah won't allow us into His promised land without learning the lessons that trials are meant to teach. Why? Because Yah wants mature people. The wilderness life trains us to live in freedom.


Yah isn't going to take you to Canaan until He's satisfied that you've learned the lessons in Sinai. Now I know this conflicts with some popular ministry teachings, but the preparation for true freedom is tribulation and tests. Yah will always take you through a wilderness experience to mature you. So we must learn our lessons.
-NUMBERS 13:31




The Heavy Burden Of Freedom: Learning Through Wilderness Tests


It is in the wilderness that Yah provides for and sponsors you so you can develop your ability to respond in freedom. There is a heavy burden in freedom for which we must be conditioned before Yah will pass us on our test. Yah will bless you during this season even though you are playing around and acting immature, but the blessing isn't permanent.


When you reach the Jordan River, some changes will have to take place. Yah will want a new response from you. He will want you to show Him that for which you are capable of being responsible. He will demand responsibility. In essence, the purpose for the wilderness is to condition us for Canaan. In fact, deliverance is not freedom. Rather, it prepares us for freedom. Yah will say, "Either you die on this side in the wilderness, or you change before you go across this water. Change now, or you will die in the wilderness."


The Most High said to Moses, "How long will these people treat me with contempt? How long will they refuse to believe in me, in spite of all the miraculous signs I have performed among them? ... As surely as I live and as surely as the glory of the Most High fills the whole earth, not one of the men who saw my glory and the miraculous signs I performed in Egypt and in the desert but who disobeyed me and tested me ten times-not one of them will ever see the land I Promised on oath to their forefathers. No one who has treated me with contempt will ever see it."
-NUMBERS 14:11, 21-23


Yah told Moses that the people were stiff-necked. They hadn't changed, so He kept them in the wilderness to die over a period of forty years. Sounds horrible, doesn't it? The Bible says they died in the wilderness because they didn't pass the test to cross the river (Josh. 5:4-6).


If you die in the wilderness, you'll never experience what He had planned for you. You will make it into heaven, but life on earth will be thirsty, dry and miserable. Let us learn our lessons in the wilderness so we can handle the responsibility of Canaan. The principle is: Transformation is more important to Yah than relocation. Mental freedom is more important than physical freedom.


GETTING READY TO ENTER CANAAN
Canaan represents your promise, dream, vision, destiny and desire. Canaan is your preferred future. Every human and nation has a Canaan. Canaan is Yah's predetermined purpose for your life. In essence, Canaan represents Yah's will.


When it is time to enter Canaan, Yah will do a couple of things. First, you will have to be circumcised.
At that time the Most High said to Joshua, "Make flint knives and circumcise the Israelites again."
-JOSHUA 5:2


Circumcision is a "type" that depicts both a distinction and a departure. It distinguishes one's uniqueness from others and one's departure from an old way of life into a new lifestyle. Circumcision means Yah will cut off the last remaining binding, thinking pattern or memory from the wilderness, or Egypt. He doesn't want you to carry anything from your past into the future. Those habits that you developed in Egypt or the desert have to go before entering in. The great apostle Paul tells us in Romans 2:29 that New Testament circumcision is not the literal cutting away of human flesh, but of the heart. In Colossians 2:11, he likens it to "putting off the body of the sins of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ" (NKJv). It is essential to note that the word heart used here literally means subconscious mind. It refers to mental conditioning.


But Yah couldn't circumcise the memories and habits of Israel's rebellious parents, so He raised up their children to enter Canaan instead. Any person, community or nation that does not experience a mental transformation will not experience the fullness of their potential and destiny. Why? Because destiny demands a mentality.


The Israelites had moved about in the desert forty years until all the men who were of military age when they left Egypt had died, since they had not obeyed the Most High. For the Most High had sworn to them that they would not see the land that he had solemnly promised their fathers to give us, a land flowing with milk and honey. So he raised up their sons in their place, and these were the ones Joshua circumcised.
-JOSHUA 5:6-7


Not one of the murmuring Hebrews who kept Egypt in their hearts was allowed to enter Abraham's Promised Land. The promise had been spoken, but they weren't ready to fulfill it to the end. Only those who had no experience or memory of slavery were allowed to enter in. Joshua and Caleb were the only exceptions, because they understood their responsibility and the opportunities that awaited them on the other side of Jordan.


Nothing in the world can corrupt Canaan more than Egyptian- slavery thinking. So Yah wanted Israel to have a new life, new attitude and new habits. He wanted everything new in His new land. And He wants the same thing of you. Canaan demands conversion.


It is in the wilderness as you draw near to Yah in thanksgiving for your deliverance that He expects you to grow in renewing your mind to the realities of His new life. It is there that Yah wants to circumcise your appetite for Egypt. If you long for your old life, Yah won't take you forward into His land of milk and honey. So the responsibility for your freedom is completely up to you. In essence, the enemy of Canaan is Egypt. The enemy of true freedom is a slave mentality.


Yah will never allow you to become all you were born to be until you are sick of being what you were. You will never progress to Yah's dream for your life until you hate the nightmare in which you were living. We must hate whom we used to be and completely abandon our past before Yah can make us whom He wants us to be. Remember-mental transformation is more important than physical relocation.


Some people still dream about whom they used to be. They do the same things they used to do with old Egyptian friends. They still pass certain Egyptian hangouts and slowdown. They still desire Egyptian food.


Nothing changes until your mind changes. This is why the Creator can't trust many of us with the dream He has for us. Most of us are still thinking about Egypt, and Yah will keep us in that desert-twenty, thirty or forty years if we refuse to change. Many sit with Sinai's sand in their shoes as the minister talks about Canaan. They go home and murmur over his message, because that's what you do when you live in the wilderness.


The Israelites wanted to go back to Egypt to their pots of meat, onions and garlic (Num. 11:5). The familiar tastes of Egypt that had pleased them for four hundred years kept them from acquiring Canaan's new taste of milk and honey.


Come Out And Be Separate


Therefore come out from them and be separate, says the Most High. Touch no unclean thing, and I will receive you. I will be a Father to you, and you will be my sons and daughters, says the Most High Almighty.
-2 CORINTHIANS 6:17-18


The way Yah dealt with Israel is the way He will deal with us. If you are ever going to live fully the life Yah wants for you, you will have to change your diet. You will have to come out of Egypt and be separate. Your taste buds will have to change.


What makes life exciting for you? Do you still have a taste for liquor and drugs? Do you still drop into Pharaoh's discos and pubs? Do you still entertain thoughts of fornication and pornography? Do you dream of milk and honey while eating garlic and onions? If so, you have to change your diet, because destiny determines diet, and you eat what you want to become.

When our taste buds change, so does our diet. What is your desire toward the Word of Yah? Does His Bible truth excite you? Do you get up in the morning and say, "Wow, I can't wait to read the Bible!"? If so, your tastes are changing, and the wilderness is waning. Canaan lies over the Jordan, and your foot is ready to step in. What about the books you read, movies you watch, clubs you join and the friends you keep? Are they Canaan conscious?


If it is still tough to go to a prayer meeting-if the Holy Spirit has to rebuke you and angels have to appear to get you in the door-then you haven't acquired a taste for the things of Yah.


If you're still thinking about onions and garlic, you can't handle milk and honey. Now there is a strange food combination. If you ate onions and garlic with milk and honey, your taste buds would rebel, and your stomach would get sick. That's what happens when you keep a taste for the food of Egypt and Canaan both-you get sick. New desire, new destiny!


Yah prefers that you be in Egypt or Canaan, because once in Canaan, Yahusha demands complete commitment from His ministry. "I know your deeds," He told the Laodicean ministry in Revelation 3:15-16, "You are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm- neither hot nor cold-I am about to spit you out of my mouth." And Laodicea's word is our word in today's modern ministry.


Yah cringes at the taste of mixed milk and garlic. So you must decide where you are going to live-Egypt or Canaan, slavery or freedom. Yah doesn't want anything you experienced in slavery to be dragging behind you when you cross the Jordan. He wants everything that oppressed and suppressed you to be cut off in circumcision so you can cross over in a different mentality. Remember, you cannot drive into the future by looking in the rearview mirror.


The adults in Israel who were delivered from Egypt didn't make it to the Promised Land. It was their children, the ones who were born in the wilderness, who were trained to go into Canaan. It took Yah an entire generation to wipe out of their minds the influence of Egypt. Yah didn't allow the parents into Canaan because they had Egypt in their minds. They had been mentally conditioned by 430 years of slavery. They wouldn't be transformed mentally. So as hard as it may sound, one of the best things Yah could do to move His plan along was to make sure they stayed and died in Sinai's desert sands. Remember, wearing a crown doesn't make one think like a king. The wilderness is Yah's classroom for training for Canaan. Freedom demands preparation.


Leadership Help


Another thing Yah will do in preparation for crossing the Jordan is give you a human mentor to lead you into prepa ration for freedom. The person Yah puts in your life will be hard on you. He will force you to grow, because his job is to prepare you to live in freedom. Moses was Israel's mentor, and it is ironic that his hardness was the very thing that kept him from personally crossing the Jordan. When he complained bitterly about the people's slave mentality and hardheartedness, Yah judged him for lowering himself to the murmurers' level. Shouting out in anger over the people's rebellious hearts, he smote a rock for water instead of obeying Yah's command to simply speak to it.


He [Moses] and Aaron gathered the assembly together in front of the rock and Moses said to them, "Listen, you rebels, must we bring you water out of this rock?" Then Moses raised his arm and struck the rock twice with his staff. Water gushed out, and the community and their livestock drank. But the Most High said to Moses and Aaron, "Because you did not trust in me enough to honor me as holy in the sight of the Israelites, you will not bring this community into the land I give them."
-NUMBERS 20:10-12


The purpose of teaching and training is not just for information; it is for transformation. We are transformed by the renewing of our minds. But it was Moses who led in integrity and trained Joshua to finish the job.
This training is so important to the Creator that if you do not graduate from the wilderness school of Sinai, He will never allow you to enter the fullness of your purpose and destiny in Canaan.


THE CANAAN PHASE


The final phase of freedom can come only inside the borders of the promised land. Yah kept the children of Israel In the wilderness for forty years because of their irresponsibility to take Him at His word. But He kept them alive long enough to bear the next generation, That new generation, along with those twenty years old and younger, could be trained by Joshua and Caleb to possess their Promised Land. Freedom is not just a right; it is a privilege. Freedom is an attitude, and it is not guaranteed; it must be earned.Freedom is a heavy responsibility.


Understanding Freedom


After the death of Moses the servant of the Most High, the Most High said to Joshua son of Nun, Moses' aide: "Moses my servant is dead. Now then, you and all these people, get ready to cross the Jordan River into the land I am about to give to them-to the Israelites."
-JOSHUA 1:1-2


Moses delivered the people from slavery, but Joshua would be Yah's freedom fighter. When you go through the Jordan River, Yah will be with you, but it is then that He will expect you to put down your manna bag and pick up your sword. Once you cross the Jordan, Yah will always have higher expectations of you than He did when you were in the wilderness. Yah's word to Joshua is our word today: "No one will be able to stand up against you all the days of your life. As I was with Moses, so I will be with you; I will never leave you nor forsake you" (Josh. 1:5).


The problem so many have is that they forget Yah is with them. They don't spend time with Him, so His presence isn't sensed. We must never forget that Yah is with us. We must come to Him as our Father every day. He is greater than any oppression experienced in the past, and He will never leave or forsake us. Everything He has promised, He will bring to pass. This remains the same. But on the other side of the Jordan, Yah expects us to roll up our sleeves and get to work. He deals with His promised land people much differently than He does with wilderness folk.


Yah told Moses to part the Red Sea with a piece of wood. But with Joshua, Yah told the Israelites to walk through the water. With Moses, Yah gave food from heaven. With Joshua, Yah told them to plant their own corn. With Moses, Yah gave the people water from a rock when the people were thirsty. Those who entered Canaan with Joshua were told to dig their own wells .


There was, and is, a distinct difference between Moses and Joshua. Moses was a deliverer, while Joshua was a freedom fighter. Moses' assignment was to deliver Israel from physical oppression. Joshua's assignment was to lead them into the Promised Land, and consequently into their freedom from mental oppression.


Yah was the same Yah, but the phase of life for Israel had been upgraded to the next level. Moses' group received Yah's miracle power; the people under Joshua were commanded to participate in becoming a part of His miracle power.


When it's time to enter freedom, the seas of life won't open any longer by themselves. When I was in college, I would pray, and tuition money miraculously came. When I prayed, Yah also fed and clothed me. But after I graduated, He said, "Go to work. If you don't work, you don't eat." He was the same Yah after graduation, but now I had been promoted to the next level of life-the level of responsibility.


Once you enter the promised land, Yah doesn't independently open the seas. You have to "get your feet wet," as we say. Joshua had to tell the people to put their feet in the water. They had to use faith. "I'm not sure this is going to work," some of them may have said, "but Yah told me to put my foot there. So I'm going to put in another step."


When you are grown, Yah makes you a part of the miracle. Joshua had taken over after Moses died, and Israelwas in a different era. Yah told the new leader, "Do not let this Book of the Law depart from your mouth; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful"(Josh. 1:8).


"Moses sanctified you in the wilderness," Yah was saying in essence, "but in Canaan you have to sanctify yourselves. Now it's time to work out your own salvation. Now you must be responsible for knowing My Word yourself. No one will watch over you here to see if you are sneaking around sinning. It's growing-up time. Welcome to Canaan. Here, grab a shovel, pick and sword. It's time to become responsible. It's time to go to work."


Responsibility is the prerequisite for freedom. Therefore, the principle of freedom is responsibility, because freedom demands it.


Be Strong And Courageous


To be responsible in our calling, we must know who we are in order to be strong. Yah's first admonition to Joshua was, "Be strong and courageous, because you will lead these people to inherit the land I swore to their forefathers to give them. Be strong and very courageous" (Josh. 1:6-7) Freedom demands more strength than slavery.


Yah wanted Joshua to know that the inhabitants of their Promised Land were going to resist him so badly that he would need every ounce of strength he had. Yah never told Moses to be strong. Yet, this was Yah's first command to Joshua: "Be strong!" And this is what Yah is commanding the ministry today. Freedom demands personal strength and courage because freedom demands discipline.

This is the hour Yah is calling religious people to cancel their "Bless-Me" club memberships. Yah isn't giving us anything we "claim" anymore. We are out of the miracle wilderness of the Charismatic movement, and He is calling us to be strong. Yah is saying that now is the time to roll up our sleeves, dig our wells and take the land. Some of us have crossed over Jordan, but many others are dying in the wilderness with our Bless-Me club memberships and lazy lifestyles. Take responsibility for your own destiny.


Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the Most High your Yah will be with you wherever you go.
JOSHUA 1:9


To experience true freedom we must understand the difference between freedom and deliverance and embrace the reality that freedom demands personal and corporate responsibility. This principle is to be applied to individuals, organizations, communities and nations.


Yah also wanted Joshua to know that some things ahead were going to be frightening. He wanted him to know this to inspire his courage. And the same is true for you. Yah will show you things that will frighten you when you grow up. He will give you something He knows you can handle, but your mind won't be able to believe it. So be not afraid of fear, because fear is the soil of courage. Courage is not the absence of fear, but the freedom to face it. Fear is necessary for coverage.


Yah's courage comes when fear arrives, so He wants a people who will run toward the battles and challenges of life. It is then that He infuses us with His courageous abilities and peace. In Yah's mind, challenges are only opportunities to exercise our potential.


Following the Israelites' miraculous rescue from Egypt, Yah kept Israel safe and provided for them miraculously, just as in the desert. That is the wilderness experience-a total miracle. The Egyptians all drowned in the Red Sea.But when the Israelites crossed over Jordan, the first thing they saw was Jericho. Now it was time to get out their swords and make this victory happen. Earlier they had merely watched as Yah sent the plagues, opened the sea and rained down the manna. Now they were a part of the miracle. Now they had to roll up their sleeves and act upon Yah's Word.


New Responsibilities


In the case study of Israel's deliverance from Egypt, Canaan stands as a symbol of freedom and destiny. The watchword for Canaan is responsibility, because freedom demands responsibility. Israel was camped inside the Promised Land on the plains of Jericho when its new era began. And when it did, and when they began to eat from the produce of the land, their miraculous food supply suddenly stopped.


The day after the Passover, that very day, they ate some of the produce of the land: unleavened breadand roasted grain. The manna stopped the day after they ate this food from the land; there was no longer any manna for the Israelites, but that year they ate of the produce of Canaan.
-JOSHUA 5:11-12


From that time forward, the Israelites were expected to eat what the land of Canaan produced. The bread of freedom is baked by the burden of responsibility.


No More Manna


Because of the promised land responsibilities into which Yah is calling His twenty first-century ministry forty years beyond the Charismatic renewal, He is bringing us to a place today where He is cutting off the manna. For some the manna has already been cut off, and they think Yah has left. One day everything started going wrong, so they suddenly wondered what they were doing wrong. They thought it was the devil, or that Yah didn't work miracles anymore. But it was Yah, wanting them to grow up.

Entire ministries are still trying to live in the miraculous wilderness of the fifties. Back then, all you had to do was plant a tent, invite the people and miracles exploded when Yah showed up. But since then, Yah has been teaching us in His miraculous wilderness to grow up in the truth of His Word. Some have been doing it, but others haven't. They long for the lazy days when all they had to do was simply show up.


Yah wants His Word to be clear today. "I am still with you. But no more manna. No free food. It's time to come out of your comfortable front rooms and accept your responsibility as My servants, so I can bless the work of your hands. It is time to move from wonders to work. It is time to mature. Maturity is characterized by responsibility."


The Most High your Yah has blessed you in all the work of your hands. He has watched over your journey through this vast desert. These forty years the Most High your Yah has been with you, and you have not locked anything.
-DEUTERONOMY 2:7


When the manna stopped across Jordan, so did the miraculous water and the miraculously preserved clothes. Everything stopped when they began to partake of the fruit of the Promised Land. Now they were to become faith partners in Yah's miracles. Now they were to grow into their responsibilities of possessing the Promised Land.


If you have been struggling in the wilderness, I hope the truth in this teaching has spoken to you. Yah doesn't do things the same way in Canaan as He does in the wilderness. This is important, because people who don't understand this think Yah has left them. Many don't make it out of the wilderness phase because they refuse to grow. You may be one of them. Maybe you've been wondering why Yah stopped moving in your life last year-or many years ago.He has not stopped moving. He is now wanting and expecting you to move, because destiny demands action.


When Joshua led the people into Canaan, the Hittites, Amorites and Canaanites were there to be contended with. Though the land had been promised, they had to take responsibility to fight for what was already theirs. So will you in Yah's land of milk and honey.


The victories you are believing for will come, but you have to fight for them, because it is responsibility time now. The days of free manna, free clothes and water from the rock may be gone. But that's all right. You can dig your well now and grow your own food, because Yah is saying, "It is responsibility time." This is also true of nations. National independence does not guarantee freedom; it only proffers deliverance from imperialism. The spirit of industry, work and responsibility determines the success and development of a delivered nation.


The price of freedom is spelled R-E-S-P-O-N-S-I-B-I-L-I-T-Y. But are you willing to pay it? Are you ready to put down your Tinkertoys and report to Yah's job? Good. Now keep on reading, because life across Jordan is exciting and full.


The most pathetic person in the world is someone who has sight but has no vision.




WILDERNESS PEOPLE
1. A promise gives birth to vision. Promises give birth to faith.


2. A divine promise is more powerful than your predicament.


3. The wilderness is a place of preparation for your freedom.


4. Yah will qualify you for the promise. The wilderness will qualify you for Canaan.


5. Promise demands preparation.


6. Yah will never give us what He hasn't qualified us to manage.
-Helen Keller


7. The wilderness life trains us to live in freedom.


8. Transformation is more important to Yah than relocation. Mental freedom is more important than physical freedom.


9. Canaan is Yah's predetermined purpose for your life.


10. Destiny demands a mentality.


11. Canaan demands conversion.


12. The enemy of true freedom is a slave mentality.


13. Nothing changes until your mind changes.


14. You cannot drive into the future by looking in the rearview mirror.


15. Wearing a crown doesn't make one think like a king.


16. Freedom demands preparation.


17. Freedom is an attitude, and it is not guaranteed; it must be earned.


18. Responsibility is the prerequisite for freedom.


19. Courage is not the absence of fear, but the freedom to face it.


20. Yah doesn't do things the same way in Canaan as He does in the wilderness.


21. The victories you are believing for will come, but you have to fight for them, because it is responsibility time now.
Genesis 12


Now the Most High had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will shew thee:


2 And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing:


3 And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.


4 So Abram departed, as the Most High had spoken unto him; and Lot went with him: and Abram was seventy and five years old when he departed out of Haran.


5 And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother's son, and all their substance that they had gathered, and the souls that they had gotten in Haran; and they went forth to go into the land of Canaan; and into the land of Canaan they came.


6 And Abram passed through the land unto the place of Sichem, unto the plain of Moreh. And the Canaanite was then in the land.


7 And the Most High appeared unto Abram, and said, Unto thy seed will I give this land: and there builded he an altar unto the Most High, who appeared unto him.


8 And he removed from thence unto a mountain on the east of Bethel, and pitched his tent, having Bethel on the west, and Hai on the east: and there he builded an altar unto the Most High, and called upon the name of the Most High.


9 And Abram journeyed, going on still toward the south.


10 And there was a famine in the land: and Abram went down into Egypt to sojourn there; for the famine was grievous in the land.


11 And it came to pass, when he was come near to enter into Egypt, that he said unto Sarai his wife, Behold now, I know that thou art a fair woman to look upon:


12 Therefore it shall come to pass, when the Egyptians shall see thee, that they shall say, This is his wife: and they will kill me, but they will save thee alive.


13 Say, I pray thee, thou art my sister: that it may be well with me for thy sake; and my soul shall live because of thee.


14 And it came to pass, that, when Abram was come into Egypt, the Egyptians beheld the woman that she was very fair.


15 The princes also of Pharaoh saw her, and commended her before Pharaoh: and the woman was taken into Pharaoh's house.


16 And he entreated Abram well for her sake: and he had sheep, and oxen, and he asses, and menservants, and maidservants, and she asses, and camels.


17 And the Most High plagued Pharaoh and his house with great plagues because of Sarai Abram's wife.


18 And Pharaoh called Abram and said, What is this that thou hast done unto me? why didst thou not tell me that she was thy wife?


19 Why saidst thou, She is my sister? so I might have taken her to me to wife: now therefore behold thy wife, take her, and go thy way.


20 And Pharaoh commanded his men concerning him: and they sent him away, and his wife, and all that he had.