F4F | Correcting John & Lisa Bevere's False Teaching on Wilderness Seasons

Technical Setup and Program Introduction

Welcome to another installment of Fighting for the Faith. My name is Chris Roseboro, I am your servant in Jesus Christ, and this is the channel that compares what people are saying in the name of God to the Word of God.

Now if you've spent any time in charismatic Pentecostal churches, even just kind of grassroots evangelical megachurches, you have probably heard the biblical teaching of wilderness seasons. Do you feel like you're going through a dry and gravelly part of your life?

Do you feel like God is ignoring you? Do you feel like, you know, that things are just terrible and you're waiting for things to improve? Well, you could be in a wilderness season! Here's the issue. This is not heresy, but it's not a right handling of God's Word.

And we're gonna note something here, and one of my operative ideas is this, is that false doctrines have a way of compounding. And we have to consider it in this light. Pastors are instructed, actually commanded by God, to rightly handle, to rightly divide the Word of Truth, and to teach the trustworthy Word as it is already taught.

And so when somebody comes along and comes up with an innovative way of teaching the Scripture that is not in accord with sound doctrine, good exegesis, and on top of it it's kind of designed to kind of read you into the biblical texts, although it doesn't necessarily rise to the level of heresy, these doctrines compound and they lead you astray over a long period of time.

You know, so what starts off as like one degree off over a period of years gets you way, way off from the proper understanding of it. So what we're gonna do today, we're going to spend a little bit of time correcting this idea of what a wilderness season is by looking at what the Bible teaches regarding the wilderness season that Israel went through, the wilderness time of Isaiah, the wilderness time of Jesus.

And when you start to connect these things, throw in a little bit of Hebrews 11, and you can actually see what's going on. And that is that every single Christian that is alive currently is in the wilderness.

It doesn't...this is not a season that ends until you die, and I'll explain why here in a minute. And when you look at a proper understanding of what the wilderness is, then you begin to recognize that this teaching, what the Bible teaches regarding the wilderness, is so much deeper, more profound, and has greater import and an impact on you and I, and how we are to look at ourselves, and how we are to look at God, that gets missed in the popularized version of it that really just kind of skips along the surface.

So, you know, gird up your loins, we're gonna go a little bit deeper than what we're gonna hear John and Lisa Bevere say. So let me do this. I'm gonna whirl up the desktop, and just a little note here.

So this is a photograph I took in London in the fall of 2024. Many of you have been sending requests. Will you be making your photographs available for sale? The answer is yes. I had to find a vendor to kind of help out with that because I don't have the ability to add another thing to my list, and so we're currently in the process of working behind the scenes to launch a dedicated specifically to selling prints of my photography, and different things along those lines.

Stay tuned. As soon as it's out, I'll announce it here at Fighting for the Faith, and you'll see me promoting it from time to time on my social media because there seems to be a desire for this. We'll see how it goes.

We'll see how this goes. But anyway, let's do this. I'm gonna whirl up my desktop, I'm sorry, my web browser, and we're gonna be listening to John and Lisa Bevere. These are not sound teachers. If you go into the archives of the audio podcast of Fighting for the Faith, which I did for more than a decade, the audio podcast of Fighting for the Faith, and you just type into the search bar, Bevere, in fact what we'll do is we'll put a link down below so that you can just go straight to this page, you'll note that John and Lisa Bevere made regular appearances on the audio version of the Fighting for the Faith podcast.

And the reason why they did is because these two are notorious for twisting scripture, scratching itching ears, and teaching for shameful gain things that they ought not to teach. So for instance, in one of our episodes we covered Dangerously Awake, a message that was popularized by Lisa Bevere, which horrifically twists the scripture.

Full sermon review on that, by the way. We did another full sermon review of Lisa Bevere's Lioness Arising teacher, and you get the idea. If you really want to understand just how bad of Bible twisters John and Lisa Bevere are, we've got all that documented in our audio podcast archives.

So again, we'll put a link, the link to this page down below so that you can have access to that quickly. And if you want to do further research, you can say, okay, these people are not sound. That being said, what we're going to cover here is not the most egregious thing that we've ever covered.

The point here is I want you to understand what the Bible really teaches regarding what the wilderness is, so that you can have a good understanding of it. So when you hear trite mishandlings of God's Word, like what we're going to hear here, you'll know that, yeah, these are people that you should just mark and avoid.

That's kind of the point. So a little bit of note. Before I hit the play button, I've sped them up just a little bit. And if you're sitting there going, why are they talking so fast? I did that, you know, because I like to keep the pace moving along, but you get the idea.

So let's listen as John Bevere introduces the concept of wilderness seasons,.

Plural. What's the least favorite season that we as believers experience? Without a doubt, I would say it's a wilderness season. And does God bring us into wilderness seasons? Without a doubt, Lisa. I mean, seasons...

We are in the.

Wilderness now, and you'll understand why in a minute. God is the one that led.

Israel into the desert. Now, his will was for them to be there one year.

That was the intent, for sure, but the issue is that God led them into the wilderness for a far greater reason that the scripture reveals in Deuteronomy 8. We'll explain that in a minute. Astonished when I saw this one day.

I.

Think it was in the book of Numbers or Exodus. He only wanted them to be there one year because he sent the spies out, the spies go out, or the, excuse me, the leaders sent the spies out one year after they'd come out, and that's when they made the big mistake.

So they extended their winter to 40 years. Wow.

You're saying they didn't have to be that long? They didn't have to be. You.

Can lengthen the season, but you sure can't shorten it because God Almighty is the one that sent them out there. If you look at Joseph, Joseph didn't do much of anything wrong, but he goes into slavery, he goes to a desert.

Now,.

Joseph, using him as a cross-reference is not right. Joseph, his time in prison wasn't a wilderness season. If anything, you could say it was a prison season. So watch what he's doing. He's basically saying, so you got dry and gravely times in your life, and the children of Israel, they had their wilderness season,.

And Joseph had his. You look at David, David is the king's bearer. God says you're going to be anointed, you're going to be my servant, you're going to be the next king of Israel. Saul takes him under his wings, makes him his armor bearer, he's eaten at the table with the sons of the king, but the next thing he knows, he's having to live in deserts for 12 years.

And everything he's doing is.

Missing the point. This is a way of scratching itching ears. I'll explain why.

It was something that actually God permitted. And if you look, it's not true.

God permitted Joseph to be in prison. God permitted David to be chased like a dog by King Saul, for sure. Look at Jesus. I think this is the one that's.

Just absolutely the most clear-cut. The Bible says that Jesus was led by the Spirit of God into the wilderness for 40 days. Now, what is the wilderness? Okay, the children of Israel didn't cooperate with the season, they extended it 39 extra years.

So 40 times more than what God originally intended them to be in.

Now, note, he's not actually reading any biblical texts here, and that's an important thing. When somebody is just merely making reference to this story or that story, and then creating a doctrine in the process, that's a red flag.

Because of their behavior, they acted incorrectly in that season. So what I...

They acted incorrectly in that season. That was kind of the point. God was.

Testing them, and I'll show you... I want to help people with is, if this is your winter season, this is your wilderness season, don't see it as you've been put on the shelf. Don't see it as God rejecting you.

Don't see it as God.

Ignoring you. It's actually God preparing you. Okay, here's the issue. He's right-ish, and he is way wrong. And you're gonna note that what he's doing is he's using the biblical texts to basically use it as an overlay.

The children of Israel went through their wilderness season, David went through his, Joseph went through his, Jesus went through his, you're gonna go through yours, but he doesn't rightly teach what the scriptures say the wilderness is.

And as a result of it, he's basically engaging in a very subtle form of narcissus, where the idea then is, is that, you know, King David slayed his Goliath, you gotta slay yours too. King David went through his wilderness season, you gotta go through yours too.

But there is a proper way of understanding the wilderness, but he's not engaging in it, and the way, the reason why is because he's not exegeting. He's pontificating, he's speculating, he's theologizing, but he's not actually teaching the biblical text.

So here's where we're gonna depart, and we're going to spend a little bit of time working through some things here. So in Deuteronomy chapter 8, so we're gonna start with the children of Israel. In Deuteronomy chapter 8, we have an explanation from God as to why the children of Israel were in the wilderness for 40 years, okay?

And it's a much different focus than the focus that John Bevere gave, and he just merely referenced a text but he didn't read it. So Deuteronomy 8, we're gonna read a large portion of this chapter, and so, you know, Deuteronomy, we're getting towards the end of their wilderness time, they're getting ready to enter into the Promised Land.

Here's what it says, the whole commandment that I command you today, this is God speaking, you shall be careful to do that you may live and multiply and go in and possess the land that Yahweh swore to give to your fathers, and you shall remember the whole way that Yahweh your God has led you these 40 years in the wilderness that he might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not.

The reason why God brought the children of Israel into the wilderness was to test them, to see whether or not they were going to listen to Yahweh, whether they were going to obey his commands, and you're going to note that the story of the children of Israel, they're 40 years in the wilderness, when they, in the early portion of the 40 years, they were awful, flat-out disobeying, forgetting God's Word, ignoring his Word, and committing egregious sins, and breaking commandments left, right, and center, and as a result of it, many, many people, they fell in the wilderness, they died, and so let me do this.

I think I can remember where this is off the top of my head. If not, then I will just find it along the way. Let's see here. It might be five. Hang on a second here. I'm just gonna do this. Examples. Okay, nope.

My apologies for the sound there. I didn't pick a...here we go. 1st Corinthians 10. There we go. That's what I want. 1st Corinthians 10. So watch what Paul, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, writes for us.

He says, I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, all passed to the sea, all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and this is an important exegetical key here.

So you'll note that the children of Israel were baptized. Huh. Keep that in mind, because there's a way to sync up the teaching of the wilderness, which is a type and shadow pointing to something bigger.

So they were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and the sea, all ate the same spiritual food, all drank from the same spiritual drink, for they drank from the spiritual rock that followed them. The rock was Christ.

Nevertheless, with most of them, God was not pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness. Now, these things took place as examples for us that we might not desire evil as they did. So you'll note, God in Deuteronomy 8 makes it very clear.

The reason why they were in the wilderness is because God is testing them. And many of them, God was not pleased with them at all, and they desired evil, and they stand then as an example to us so that we would not desire evil.

So do not be idolaters as some of them were. As it is written, the people sat down to eat and to drink and rose to play. We must not indulge in sexual immorality as some of them did, and 23 ,000 fell in a single day.

We must not put Christ to the test as some of them did and were destroyed by serpents, nor grumble as some of them did and were destroyed by the destroyer. These things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction on whom the end of the ages has come.

So you can see here that the wilderness that they went through is regarding testing, and the testing is regarding evil. What is it that was coming up out of their hearts expressed in their behaviors, and what were the consequences of that?

So you get the idea here, and then Paul says, therefore let anyone who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall. We cannot stand on our own. So Deuteronomy 8, coming back to it then. So God has led you these 40 years in the wilderness so that he might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not, and he humbled you, and he lets you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of God.

So a big part of the teaching of the wilderness was to instruct and drive home this truth, man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord. Your clothing did not wear out on you, and your foot did not swell these 40 years.

Know then in your heart that as a man disciplines his son, Yahweh your God disciplines you. So you shall keep the commandments of Yahweh your God by walking in his ways and by fearing him, for Yahweh your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks, of water, of fountains and springs flowing out in valleys and hills, a land of wheat and barley.

Now real quick, you're sitting there going, well God's talking to them, how does this have impact regarding me? The answer to that is actually more profound than you can possibly imagine. If I were to go to Hebrews chapter 11, here's another exegetical key for us, and that is is that when we look at the promised land and what it truly points to, you can see then how this informs us regarding the wilderness that all Christians are in.

I'll explain here. Okay, so Hebrews 11, 8, by faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. He went out, not knowing where he was going, by faith he went to live in the land of promise as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise.

For he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God. You see, the promised land is not a postage stamp piece of property in the Middle East prone to conflict.

No, the true promised land, Abraham never even got there. The true promised land is the new earth. And that being the case, you can kind of see how this then works. The children of Israel were led out of slavery, they were baptized in the Red Sea.

This is what Paul says. They were baptized in the Red Sea, and then they were brought into the wilderness as they were sojourning to the promised land, a time of testing, a time of discipline, a time of instruction, so that they may know that man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God over that 40 years.

And then they finally get to the promised land, and the promised land is not the thing that they actually inherit. The promised land that they went into points to the thing that we all are looking forward to, the new earth.

It's an eschatological promise. So in that sense, when you can look at the story of Israel in the Exodus, that's your story. You have been baptized into Christ. You are now sojourning, heading towards the promised land, the new earth.

And in so doing, the life that you're currently living, God is disciplining you. God is instructing you. God is testing you. You are in the wilderness as long as you are in this life. That's the point.

So let me continue with this Hebrew text. Abraham was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God. By faith, Sarah received power to conceive even when she was past the age.

Okay, let me fast forward here. Verse 13, all of these died in faith, not having received the things promised. Abraham didn't inherit the promised land. He was looking for the city whose builder is God.

All of these died in faith, not having received the promise, but having seen and greeted them from afar, they have acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth. Your life here is the wilderness, right?

For people who speak thus make it clear that they're seeking a homeland. If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is a heavenly one.

Therefore, God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city. Now do you see it? Okay, that's what the teaching of Scripture is in this regard. And then you'll note that after Hebrews 11, this great hall of faith passage, talking about how we're all heading towards the true promised land, in Hebrews 12, we hear these words from God, the Holy Spirit, through the author of Hebrews.

Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or faint-hearted in your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood.

And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons? My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when reproved by him. For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and he chastises every son whom he receives.

Now you're starting to see it. There's overlapping concepts here in the Scripture, and that's the point. So coming back to Deuteronomy then, Deuteronomy 8, verse 7, for Yahweh your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks, of water, of fountains, and springs.

And this is pointing to the real promised land, the new earth, flowing out of valleys and hills, a land of wheat and barley, of vines, of fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olives and honey, a land in which you will eat bread without scarcity, in which you will lack nothing, a land whose stones are iron and out of whose hills you can dig copper.

And you shall eat and be full, and you shall bless Yahweh your God for the good land that he has given you. So take care lest you forget Yahweh your God by not keeping his commandments and his rules and his statutes which I command you today.

Lest when you have eaten and are full and have built good houses and live in them, when your herds and flocks multiply and your silver and gold is multiplied and all that you have is multiplied, then your heart is lifted up and you forget Yahweh your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery, who led you through the great and terrifying wilderness.

That's the other aspect of it. God is the one leading you now to the real promised land, right? With its fiery serpents and scorpions and thirsty ground where there was no water, who brought you water out of the flinty rock, and the rock is Christ, we saw that in 1 Corinthians 10, who fed you in the wilderness with manna that your fathers did not know that he might humble you and test you to do good in the end.

So beware lest you say in your heart, my power and my might of my hand have gotten me this wealth. You shall remember Yahweh your God for it is he who gives you the power to get wealth, that he may confirm his covenant that he swore to your fathers as is as it is this day.

And if you forget Yahweh your God and go after other gods and serve them and worship them, I solemnly warn you today that you shall surely perish. Like the nations that Yahweh makes to perish before you, so shall you perish because you would not obey the voice of Yahweh your God.

Stern warning, but you can see then how this applies to Christians because this is all in the types and shadows. We are in our exodus, we have been baptized, we are living in the wilderness of this world, sojourners heading towards the real promised land and the city whose builder is God.

See the end of Revelation if you want to know what that looks like. So let me show you another example then. In 1 Kings, Elisha, when after the defeat of the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel, Jezebel was not in a good mood.

No, she just wasn't. I what a cranky and idolatrous demonic lady she was. So when Ahav, 1 Kings 19 says, when Ahav told Jezebel what Elijah had done, that how he had killed all the prophets with the sword, then Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah saying, so may the gods do to me and more also if I do not make your life as the life of one of them by this time tomorrow.

Then he was afraid and he rose and ran for his life and he came to Bathsheba, which belongs to Judah, and he left his servant there. But he himself went a day's journey into the wilderness. So you're going to know, Elijah's kind of going backwards.

Going back into the wilderness? Leaving the promised land to go to the wilderness? That doesn't make any theological sense. Not in the types and shadows. And he came and sat down under a broom tree and he asked that he might die saying, it is enough now, oh Yahweh, take my life for I am no better than my father's.

And he lay down and he slept under a broom tree and behold, an angel touched him and said to him, arise and eat. And he looked and behold, there was at his head a cake baked on hot stones and a jar of water.

And he ate and he drank and he lay down again. And the angel of Yahweh came again a second time and touched him saying, arise and eat for the journey is too great for you. So note he's got miraculous bread from heaven.

And to sustain him in the wilderness. You start to see the themes here. And he rose and ate and drank and he went in the strength of that food 40 days and 40 nights to Horeb, the mountain of God. So you'll note that the number 40, 40 days in the wilderness then invokes Israel.

And of course, Elijah is a sinner like you and I. And God eventually asked Elijah, what are you doing here? He's like, why are you here? You're going back to Mount Sinai? You're missing the whole point, Elijah.

That's kind of the point. But let's take a look then at what Christ does. Because Christ's 40-day temptation in the wilderness invokes the children of Israel. Remember, they were brought into the wilderness.

God was testing them. God was seeing whether they would obey his commands or not. They were tempted in the wilderness and they didn't do so hot. In fact, before I get to how Jesus does in the wilderness, let me remind you what the scripture says in summary about how Israel did in the wilderness.

In Psalm 106, verse 6, it says this, both we and our fathers have sinned. We've committed iniquity. We have done wickedness. Our fathers, when they were in Egypt, did not consider your wondrous works.

They did not remember the abundance of your steadfast love, but they rebelled by the sea, at the Red Sea. Yet he saved them for his namesake, so that he might make known his mighty power. He rebuked the Red Sea and it became dry.

And then he led them through the deep as through a desert. And so he saved them from the hand of the foe and he redeemed them from the power of the enemy. Salvation and redemption, big themes of the Exodus, by the way.

And the waters covered their adversaries. Not one of them was left. Then they all believed his words and they sang his praise, but they soon forgot his works. And they did not wait for his counsel, but they had a wanton craving in the wilderness to put God to the test in the desert.

He gave them what they asked, but sent a wasting disease among them. When men in the camp were jealous of Moses and Aaron and the Holy One of Yahweh, the earth opened and swallowed up Dathan and covered the company of Abba Ram.

A fire also broke out in their company. The flame burned up the wicked. They made a calf in Horeb and worshipped a metal image. They exchanged the glory of God for the image of an ox that eats grass. They forgot God, their Savior, who had done great things in Egypt, wondrous works in the land of Ham, and awesome deeds by the Red Sea.

Therefore he said he would destroy them had not Moses, his chosen one, stood in the breach before him to turn away his wrath from destroying them. Then they despised the pleasant land, having no faith in his promise.

They murmured in their tents and they did not obey the voice of Yahweh. Therefore he raised his hand and swore to them that he would make them fall in the wilderness and would make their offspring fall among the nations, scattering them among the lands.

Then they yoked themselves to the Baal of Peor and ate sacrifices offered to the dead. They provoked Yahweh to anger with their deeds and a plague broke out among them. Then Phinehas stood up and intervened and the plague was stayed, and that was counted to him as righteousness from generation to generation forever.

They angered him at the waters of Meribah, and it went ill with Moses on their account, for they made his spirit bitter, and he spoke rashly with his lips. They did not destroy the peoples as Yahweh commanded them, but they mixed with them, they mixed with the nations, and learned to do as they did.

They served their idols, which became a snare to them. You get the idea here. So Psalm 106 kind of shows, so when God put Israel to the test, did Israel pass? No. No, they did not obey, they did not listen.

That's the point. But what about Christ? So when we take a look at Christ's time in the wilderness, Matthew 4 is a good text to go to. So Jesus, after his baptism, you'll note that's immediately in the context here, if I were to just expand this out and go back out to chapter 3.

So then John the Baptist consented, and when Jesus was baptized, immediately he went up from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him.

And behold, a voice from heaven said, this is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased. Jesus is baptized. Paul said that the children of Israel were baptized in the Red Sea. So Jesus, after his baptism, goes where?

To the wilderness. Israel, after their baptism, goes where? To the wilderness, to be tested, to be tempted, right? Israel has failed. Let's see if Jesus succeeds. So Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil.

Ah, Jesus is now in the wilderness after his baptism to be tested, to be tempted. Will Jesus stand the test, or will he fall like Israel before him? And after fasting for 40 days and 40 nights, he was hungry.

And the tempter came and said to him, if you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread. But he answered, it is written, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.

Note here, this is not an accident. So Jesus' first temptation is to turn stones into bread, and he says, no, it is written, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.

Well, didn't we hear that in Deuteronomy 8? Isn't that exactly what God said? And he humbled you in the wilderness, this is verse 3 of Deuteronomy 8, let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.

You see the connection? Oh, it's amazing. Okay, Jesus is amazing. Now, the devil, not used to being, to losing, to being rebuffed, okay, you'll note that what Christ shows here is that he's learned. He knows man doesn't live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God, and that's the whole reason why God led the children of Israel into the wilderness.

Jesus' first response to the devil is exactly those words. So, then the devil took him to the holy city, set him on the pinnacle of the temple, and said to him, if you are the son of God, throw yourself down, for it is written he will command his angels concerning you, and on their hands they will bury you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.