Faith for the Coming Wilderness (3) - David Eells - UBBS 9.10.2025

Faith for the Coming Wilderness (3)

(audio)

David Eells – 9/10/25

 

I am sharing this encouragement now because the wilderness is at our door. I believe a plague is planned and it will be partially prayed down because of Father’s mercy and grace. I believe the same thing about the quakes across the country, including the New Madrid, that are to distract from criminal activity. Also the economy will collapse due to these and other criminal reasons and the chastening of God on this nation and the world.

So lets Begin

Buying and selling is not the way of the Kingdom. I know most ministries today do that, but we have a different economy in the Kingdom. Why did God rebuke them in the days of Noah and the days of Lot for buying and selling? (Luk.17:26) And as it came to pass in the days of Noah, even so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man. (27) They ate, they drank, they married, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed them all. (28) Likewise even as it came to pass in the days of Lot; they ate, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded; (29) but in the day that Lot went out from Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all: (30) after the same manner shall it be in the day that the Son of man is revealed.

They bought, they sold, they married, they gave in marriage; what was wrong with buying and selling? Buying and selling is not the Kingdom way between brethren especially. The Kingdom is giving and receiving. You get a reward for giving; you get none for selling and borrowing. The Bible specifically says you get a reward for giving, and the interest is much better. The interest is “good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over.” I’ve tried God on this and it works. He is faithful — consistently faithful. He is our surety. I learned that you just give, you meet the needs of the brethren around you, and don’t worry about what you have left because God is never going to fail you. Never.

From the time the Lord showed me about faith and how He forbade debt to His people, I haven’t stored up or borrowed any money, and the Lord has never failed to make sure we had a good car, a good house, and all our needs met. The world says that you have to store up the money until you have enough, but you don’t, because God can bring it in a lump sum. He did it for us many times. When we moved to Pensacola, He gave us our house, and He bought us a brand new car. They didn’t cost us anything.

Life in the wilderness is exciting. There’s nothing for us to fear. It’s only fearful to somebody who’s not a believer, but don’t worry about that. The non-believers aren’t going out in that wilderness or, at least, they are not going to go very far out into it willingly. They’re going to take the mark of the Beast because they don’t believe they can live out there. But it’s not a fearful place; it’s a very joyous place where you feel the closeness of your Father. You know that He is taking care of you and He’s watching over everything.

I remember one time that was just amazing. It was really something. My youngest daughter was a little angry because her two brothers went camping and they took all the chips with them. She was chewing on my wife’s ear in the washroom, and my wife just finally told her, “Well, you go pray to God and get your own.” And as my daughter was walking out of the washroom into the den, there came a knock on the door and she shouted, “It’s here! It’s here! It’s here already!” That’s childlike faith. She had taken only four or five steps away from the washroom into the den, and when she heard the knock on the door, she immediately claimed, “It’s here already!” And my wife grabbed her and told her, “Shush!” Well, when we answered the door, it was our neighbor who lived behind us, who also came to our Bible study. He and his family always liked my wife’s cornbread, so she had made a pan of cornbread for him to take home to his family. Here he came back the next day with the pan and it was all wrapped in foil. He handed it to my wife, and when she peeled back the foil, the pan was filled with a bag of chips!

I want you to know he started walking from two blocks behind us, yet he arrived at our door moments after my daughter had prayed her prayer, and it wasn’t a big miracle to my little girl with her childlike faith, who was just tickled. You see, God really does answer before we call. He doesn’t dwell in time; He’s not limited to time. You can ask God for something tomorrow, that if you only knew about it today, you would think it’s impossible, but He does it. He hears it all and from the beginning of time, He’s seen it all. God wants to do these things for us. He designed the wilderness so that He can meet our needs and build our faith. (2Co.12:9) And he hath said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for [my] power is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my weaknesses, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. He says, “My power is made perfect in weakness.” Glory to God!

The wilderness is a place of faith and weakness, which is available to everyone. It’s a place where we live by faith and living by faith makes us weak to be our own saviors. In other words, it’s a salvation by faith in the Lord, not our works. (Heb.10:31) But my righteous one shall live by faith: And if he shrink back, my soul hath no pleasure in him. When we learn to walk by faith, we are walking in the wilderness because our methods change from those of the world to those of God and Jesus Christ. Years ago, when the Lord started leading me in the wilderness, for months He caused my Bible to open supernaturally to Isaiah 43. He was emphasizing His point about not walking in the ways of the world, so let’s look at what the Lord says there.

(Isa.43:14) Thus saith the Lord, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: For your sake I have sent to Babylon, and I will bring down all of them as fugitives, even the Chaldeans, in the ships of their rejoicing. This was a time when God was promising deliverance to His people, who were in bondage in Babylon, and that’s where God’s people are today. They have allegiances with the world because the world is one form of Babylon. All nations came from Babel, and their Babylonish religion of the counterfeit virgin birth, Semiramis, Nimrod, so on and so forth, was spread all over the earth. And so God’s people are very much in bondage to both secular Babylon and religious Babylon, but God is calling us out of their ways, their methods, their unbelief.

What is acceptable to the world is not acceptable to God. (15) I am the Lord, your Holy One, the Creator of Israel, your King. (16) Thus saith the Lord, who maketh a way in the sea, and a path in the mighty waters. God seems to be confusing the Egyptian deliverance with the Babylonian deliverance here, but they are the same in type. God’s going to make a way in the sea. When the Israelites passed through the Red Sea, Paul said it was a baptism. (1Co.10:1) For I would not, brethren, have you ignorant, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea; (2) and were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea. A baptism is for the death of the old man and the life of the new man.

(Rom.6:3) Or are ye ignorant that all we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? (4) We were buried therefore with him through baptism unto death: that like as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life. (5) For if we have become united with [him] in the likeness of his death, we shall be also [in the likeness] of his resurrection; (6) knowing this, that our old man was crucified with [him,] that the body of sin might be done away, that so we should no longer be in bondage to sin; (7) for he that hath died is justified from sin.

God made a path through the waters for the spiritual man, the Israelite; He didn’t make a path for the carnal man, the Egyptian. (Isa.43:16) Thus saith the Lord, who maketh a way in the sea, and a path in the mighty waters; (17) who bringeth forth the chariot and horse, the army and the mighty man (they lie down together, they shall not rise; they are extinct, they are quenched as a wick). The Egyptian represented the old man, the mighty man of the flesh, who was not to follow Israel into their wilderness, because Israel was not to live in bondage to the old man in the wilderness. In the wilderness, they weren’t to do things according to the methods of Egypt. This is a type and shadow for us in our wilderness. We are not to be ruled by the old man; we are not to walk according to his principles or use his methods.

What does God mean when He says that He brought down the chariot and the horse? (Psa.147:10) He delighteth not in the strength of the horse: He taketh no pleasure in the legs of a man. (11) The Lord taketh pleasure in them that fear him, In those that hope in his lovingkindness. We see here that He likens the “strength of the horse” to the “legs of a man,” meaning, God doesn’t want us to trust in the strength of the old man, who belongs to the Beast. A chariot is a vessel that’s powered by a beast. The old man, living the old beastly life that was led by the Beast, had to die in the Red Sea so that the Israelite could go into the wilderness. And the wilderness is where the Israelite learns not to lean on the arm of the flesh, but to trust in God alone.

(Isa.43:18) Remember ye not the former things, neither consider the things of old. When you come into Christ, you give up thinking of things the way you did when you were in the world, because God is going to do everything differently from the way you did things when you were in the world. The Church doesn’t do that. The Church is living in the world and is of the world. It’s very Babylonish because they haven’t escaped Babylon yet, but the wilderness is coming quickly now to mature those who will believe.

(Rev.12:1) And a great sign was seen in heaven: a woman arrayed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars; (2) and she was with child; and she crieth out, travailing in birth, and in pain to be delivered. (3) And there was seen another sign in heaven: and behold, a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his heads seven diadems. (4) And his tail draweth the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth: and the dragon standeth before the woman that is about to be delivered, that when she is delivered he may devour her child.

(5) And she was delivered of a son, a man child, who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron: and her child was caught up unto God, and unto his throne. (6) And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place prepared of God, that there they (The Man-child) may nourish her a thousand two hundred and threescore days. The wilderness is the place that God has prepared for the Church. The very worldly Church has been living in Egypt and is in bondage to the old man, the Egyptian.

(Isa.43:19) Behold, I will do a new thing (It’s new because now that you are a Christian, you are expected to live according to God’s principles and to walk by faith. The righteous shall live by faith.); now shall it spring forth; shall ye not know it? (I’m afraid to say that’s true. An awful lot of Christians don’t know it but truth is going to pour out so they will have a chance.) I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert. Wow! That’s awesome! God even brought rivers out of rocks in the desert (Exo.17:6; Num.20:11; Psa.78:20; etc.). You see, His provision for us is not limited by our circumstances. We can put our faith in Him. (Psa.37:19) They shall not be put to shame in the time of evil; And in the days of famine they shall be satisfied. (Rom.10:11) For the scripture saith, Whosoever believeth on him shall not be put to shame.

(Isa.43:20) The beasts of the field shall honor me, the jackals and the ostriches; because I give waters in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert, to give drink to my people, my chosen. The “beasts” represent those lost people around us. It was Solomon who said every man is as a beast. (Ecc.3:18) I said in my heart, [It is] because of the sons of men, that God may prove them, and that they may see that they themselves are [but as] beasts.

And remember the beasts that came down on the sheet in Peter’s vision? (Act.10:9) Now on the morrow, as they were on their journey, and drew nigh unto the city, Peter went up upon the housetop to pray, about the sixth hour: (10) and he became hungry, and desired to eat: but while they made ready, he fell into a trance; (11) and he beholdeth the heaven opened, and a certain vessel descending, as it were a great sheet, let down by four corners upon the earth: (12) wherein were all manner of fourfooted beasts and creeping things of the earth and birds of the heaven. (13) And there came a voice to him, Rise, Peter; kill and eat. (14) But Peter said, Not so, Lord; for I have never eaten anything that is common and unclean. (15) And a voice came unto him again the second time, What God hath cleansed, make not thou common. (16) And this was done thrice: and straightway the vessel was received up into heaven.

When Peter finally understood the revelation that these unclean beasts were the Gentiles, he went and preached the Gospel to them. (28) And he said unto them, Ye yourselves know how it is an unlawful thing for a man that is a Jew to join himself or come unto one of another nation; and [yet] unto me hath God showed that I should not call any man common or unclean.... (35) but in every nation he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is acceptable to him.

So the “beasts of the field” there in Isaiah is talking about lost people, and the “field,” according to Jesus, is the world. (Mat.13:36) Then he left the multitudes, and went into the house: and his disciples came unto him, saying, Explain unto us the parable of the tares of the field. (37) And he answered and said, He that soweth the good seed is the Son of man; (38) and the field is the world; and the good seed, these are the sons of the kingdom; and the tares are the sons of the evil one. You know, the world trembled at God’s people when they came out of Egypt.

Remember what Rahab said about how they heard the stories of God’s miraculous deliverance of Israel out of Egypt and the Red Sea destruction of their enemies? (Jos.2:10) For we have heard how the Lord dried up the water of the Red Sea before you, when ye came out of Egypt; and what ye did unto the two kings of the Amorites, that were beyond the Jordan, unto Sihon and to Og, whom ye utterly destroyed. (11) And as soon as we had heard it, our hearts did melt, neither did there remain any more spirit in any man, because of you: for the Lord your God, he is God in heaven above, and on earth beneath.

They trembled before them and when God’s people become those people who live by faith in the wilderness, the world is going to tremble at them, too. They are going to understand that these people have the favor of God. They are His chosen. (Isa.43:20) The beasts of the field shall honor me, the jackals and the ostriches; because I give waters in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert, to give drink to my people, my chosen, (21) the people which I formed for myself, that they might set forth my praise.

When the Israelites went into the wilderness, God didn’t want them to continue living as if they were still Egyptians, so He had to put to death the Egyptians and their beasts. (Jer.17:5) Thus saith the Lord: Cursed is the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the Lord. This is just another way of describing those people who believe in salvation by man’s works, by man’s methods, instead of waiting on the salvation of the Lord, which is freely given. “Cursed is the man that trusteth in man.” That’s where a lot of Egyptian Israelites are. A lot of God’s people, who call themselves “Christians,” actually have more affinity with Egypt in the world than they do with God in the wilderness, but God’s going to put a stop to that. He’s going to give “drink” to His chosen, not just His called, but His chosen.

Many are going to die in the wilderness to come, but some are going to be Joshuas and Calebs. (Jer.17:5) Thus saith the Lord: Cursed is the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the Lord. (6) For he shall be like the heath (“tumbleweed”) in the desert, and shall not see when good cometh, but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, a salt land and not inhabited. Many people don’t get to see the wonderful provision of God in a place where man cannot provide it because they trust in the arm of the flesh. They are like “a tumbleweed in the desert.” (7) Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord, and whose trust the Lord is.

(8) For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, that spreadeth out its roots by the river, and shall not fear when heat cometh, but its leaf shall be green (This is somebody who continues to take in the sun/Son, somebody who continues to walk by faith.); and shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit. Those who walk by faith can go through a wilderness and have streams of water in the desert; they will have God’s provision in the desert because they don’t trust the arm of the flesh.

(Jer.17:21) Thus saith the Lord, Take heed to yourselves, and bear no burden on the sabbath day, nor bring it in by the gates of Jerusalem; (22) neither carry forth a burden out of your houses on the sabbath day, neither do ye any work: but hallow ye the sabbath day, as I commanded your fathers. The Sabbath day is the seventh day, and we’ve just entered into God’s Sabbath. We’ve just entered into the seventh day of the seven thousand years. It’s the day in which we have to cease from our works, and we are to do God’s works. And since Jesus Christ is God’s Sabbath, whenever you’ve entered into Jesus Christ, you’re supposed to cease from your works. We just saw that the Lord spoke a curse upon the people who continued to do their works on His Sabbath, whether it be the works of the Law, works of the flesh, or works of self-justification. God wants to be our only Savior.

We have to give up trying to save ourselves; we need to be weak. We cannot be in bondage to the Egyptian in the wilderness. Well, about 50 years ago, and almost six or seven years before it actually came to pass, God started giving me, my wife, my children and even the people around me, dreams, visions and prophecies concerning a ministry that we were to have in Pensacola. Let me just share a few of them with you. A friend dreamed he had gone away from us for a few years. In the dream, he came back into our neighborhood and ran into our neighbor next door, who pointed him over toward our house. He looked over there and saw we were loading up a U-Haul to move to Florida. Then he came over and helped us load up the van.

Now, in real life, we hadn’t seen him in a couple of years, but suddenly he showed up at our neighbor’s house. And our neighbor said to him, “ look over there!” And he looked over at our house and, sure enough, we had a U-Haul truck backed up to the door, and we were loading it up. He was overjoyed that he’d had a very literal dream that came precisely true, and he very happily came over and helped us. Another thing he saw in the dream was that I had some papers, and on those papers was a word that he couldn’t remember, but he said it started with a “P.” I said to him, “Pension,” and he said, “Yes! That’s the word!”

Now, I had been telling people for years that Exxon, where I worked, was going to offer me an early pension. Everybody told me I was crazy, up until the time it happened, which was when he showed up. Although the pension wasn’t much and I was still a young man and didn’t start drawing it until I reached 65, I received a year’s severance pay when I left, and it was handy to help us move. This was all gone in less than a year because we gave to every need we saw.

Another time, my wife had a dream that we were moving to Florida and that there was just one solid road to Florida. This was really strange because at the time she had this dream, the interstate was still broken in many places between Pensacola and where we lived in Baton Rouge, but we knew from the dream that when we moved, the interstate would be finished. Everybody along the Gulf Coast had been waiting for years for that interstate to be finished. People were wondering, “What are they doing? Why are they dragging their feet? Why don’t they go ahead and finish that thing?” Well, the interstate was finished just before we moved to Pensacola.

In another dream, my wife saw us walking through a house in Pensacola, and she was holding a baby girl on her hip. But before that dream, as my wife was waking up one day, she had a dream in which she saw a big boy and a little girl. And the Lord said to her, “Justin Joseph and Jennifer Joy”; all the names started with “J.” We thought we were going to have twins, until Justin Joseph was born. I told my wife, “No, it was a big boy because the boy came first, then the little girl because the little girl comes last.” So when Jennifer Joy was born, we knew it was getting close to the time we were to be moving to Pensacola. Somehow, we knew it was going to happen. And my wife came to me and she said, “Well, David it’s almost time. Do you think we ought to be saving our money?” I said, “No, I don’t. I think we are going to continue to do what the Bible tells us to do and not store up on earth but, instead, keep giving.”

There are awesome promises in the Bible for giving! (Luk.6:38) Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, shall they give into your bosom. For with what measure ye mete it shall be measured to you again. We didn’t have any money, and we definitely needed that kind of blessing to move over to Pensacola and buy a house and not be in debt because we didn’t believe in being in debt. I haven’t been in debt since I came to the Lord, and the Lord showed me that it wasn’t right to be in debt. So by not going into debt, I got to see miracles. Also, over the last 55 years has taught me that God will do miracles for people who put their trust in Him and obey their conscience.

It says in (Rom.13:8) Owe no man anything, save to love one another: for he that loveth his neighbor hath fulfilled the law. (Pro.22:7) The rich ruleth over the poor; And the borrower is servant to the lender. (Deu.15:6) For the Lord thy God will bless thee, as he promised thee: and thou shalt lend unto many nations, but thou shalt not borrow; and thou shalt rule over many nations, but they shall not rule over thee. I stayed away from debt because God had made me those promises, but later on, the thought came to me to ask, “Well, Lord, do You want me to sell my house?” The Lord answered, “No, I want you to give the house away.” I tell you, this is how we get miraculous provision from God! Give! It’s not by storing up that you get miraculous provision; it’s by giving that you get miraculous provision because God will multiply it to you many times over. There’s no multiplication in just storing up, but if you give to the needs that God points out around you, God will give to you freely, as you give freely to others.

Anyway, God told me we were going to give the house to a couple whom we knew from years back. Since we hadn’t had any fellowship with them in a while and didn’t even know where they were, we did a little research and found out that they lived in Houston. At the time, there was a big oil bust over there, and when I called this couple, I found out they’d had a company house and a company car but had lost them both when the oil business went flat. They just had their little car they owned, and basically no place to go and no job, so you see, God had prepared a place for them to live.

When I contacted them, they told me their situation. I said, “Hey, you come live with us and we’ll see how the Lord works this out,” because the Lord had already told me that I was to give our house to them. So that’s what they did; they came and moved in with us. And one day, when we were taking them out to eat, the Lord reminded me of a dream this sister had years before. In the dream, she said she’d been away from this area for a long time, and when she came back, there was somebody else living in our house. At the time, I had thought it was just some people they didn’t know living in our house, but suddenly it came into my mind that she did know who those people were.

So as we were driving along down the road, I asked, “Remember that dream you had years ago about coming back to town and somebody else was living in our house?” She said, “Yes.” I said, “That was you, wasn’t it?” And she looked at me and said, “Yes.” She didn’t want to make a self-fulfilled prophecy, which is why she didn’t tell me up front, and I understood that. I understand that’s the way of faith. I said, “Well, okay, then the house is yours.” Of course, they both looked at me in surprise, but I told them, “I mean it: the house is yours. The Lord told me to give it to you.”

Here, this couple was out of everything, wondering where in the world they were going to live, and God had prepared a place for them. They were a couple of faith, too; they had real faith in the Lord. It’s just awesome how God provided for them and for us. I was still working for Exxon at the time, and we had a fantastic church out there, with people from all different religions, who were coming together at the lunch break to share the Word and to pray for the sick. We had all kinds of miracles and wondrous things happen, too. Praise the Lord!

Well, as it was getting time for us to move to Pensacola, Exxon did offer early retirement to company people, exactly as I’d been telling all my friends there for six or seven years. And I already knew I was going to take it because God had prepared me. People came to me and said, “Wow, you told us this was going to happen,” and I said, “Yes, because the Lord told me!” Also, there was my brothers dream about the pension, so it was a good witness, especially to the pagans around me, because I told them it was coming, and it did come. Exxon wanted to switch over to contract labor instead of company employees, which were more expensive to them because of benefits and administrative costs.

Anyway, They sent me a year’s severance in a lump-sum payment, and at the same time, I agreed with our assembly there that God was going to give me a house and give me a car, since I hadn’t saved any money. You see, my car was getting to the point where we needed another one in Florida. I agreed in faith that God would do this, according to (Mat.18:19) Again I say unto you, that if two of you shall agree on earth as touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father who is in heaven. I knew these people weren’t in any position to provide that for me, and I wouldn’t have accepted it from them anyway; that’s why I agreed with them. You don’t agree with people as a matter of graft. You don’t agree with people forcing them to have pity on you and give to you. I didn’t accept any money from anybody there.

One week after we agreed on that, my wife was driving down Florida Boulevard in Baton Rouge, and the vehicle in front of her was a big Cadillac. And my wife and my daughter were in our Toyota. So the Cadillac was coming to a stop behind some other cars, and my wife was coming to a stop. Now this was at Christmas time, and the man behind her was in a big Lincoln, who evidently was window shopping. He didn’t see them, and he slammed into my wife and slammed her into the Cadillac in front. Well, if you put a Toyota between a Cadillac and a Lincoln, you know you’re not going to have much of a Toyota left. My wife and daughter were slightly injured, nothing that the Lord couldn’t take care of, but they actually had to use the jaws-of-life to pry the car open and get them out because the Toyota was just totally crumpled.

The man who was driving behind her in the Lincoln ran up alongside my wife in the car, and he told her through the window, “Listen, don’t worry about a thing. I’m going to take care of everything.” It turned out that this man was the president of a big warehouse corporation in Baton Rouge, and his corporation was self-insured; they made that much money, and the insurance he was carrying on his vehicle was way above the norm. The man was very repentant, and I don’t even think he was a Christian, but he was very, very sorry for what he had done. He contacted us and said, “Look, we’re self-insured; there’s nothing to worry about. I’ll talk to the people. You will be taken care of.” Can you even imagine having somebody like that running into you only a week after you have agreed on enough money to buy a house and car? They very quickly replaced our Toyota with a better, newer one, and they put the wheels in motion to give us a lump sum to take care of my wife and daughter for any pain and suffering they went through. It was just astounding!

Now, we didn’t sue anybody, and we weren’t planning on suing anybody; we don’t believe in doing such things. We believe in turning the other cheek and resisting not the evil, as Jesus tells us to do. (Mat.5:38) Ye have heard that it was said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth: (39) but I say unto you, resist not him that is evil: but whosoever smiteth thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. (40) And if any man would go to law with thee, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also. (41) And whosoever shall compel thee to go one mile, go with him two. (42) Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away.

(43) Ye have heard that it was said, Thou shalt love thy neighbor, and hate thine enemy: (44) but I say unto you, love your enemies, and pray for them that persecute you; (45) that ye may be sons of your Father who is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sendeth rain on the just and the unjust. Anyway, the money came in from the accident at the exact same time that the year’s severance pay came in from Exxon. It was as if God had planned the whole thing, which, of course, He had. He had planned the whole thing for us! So we paid cash for our house and new car. Then we were in our wilderness and saw many wonderous things from our God who gives grace through faith.