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It Is Written

John Bradshaw

Last Man Standing

Before we open the Bible together, we are going to pray and expect that God would speak to us.

Our Father in heaven, we come to you in the name of Jesus, asking that you would feed us with the bread of heaven.

Give us clear minds and a little cerebral sharpness so that we can grab a hold of your word, but more than that, spiritually prepare us to be fed and encouraged and blessed.

Water our souls we pray and we thank you in Jesus name, Amen.

We don't know his name it might have been Shamuah or Shaphat or Paltai maybe it was Gadiel or Sethur and maybe it was not.

I guess ultimately his or her name is not what's really important.

How long this person had been wandering in the wilderness, we don't know.

After Egypt, the children of Israel journeyed through the wilderness.

We're going to read from Deuteronomy 1 and verse 27.

Because the LORD hated us, He hath brought us forth out of the land of Egypt, to deliver us into the hand of the Amorites, to destroy us.

Our brethren have discouraged our heart, saying, The people is greater and taller than we.

The cities are great and walled up to heaven.

And moreover, We have seen the sons of the Anakims there.

If you know the story at all, you know what's happening here.

The children of Israel had come out of Egypt.

Certain spies had been commissioned by God to go and check out the land.

And that was the response of the people to the lying report, the book of Numbers calls it, of the faithless spies who came back from the Promised Land.

Hearing all of this, hearing this faithlessness and this defeatism, Moses intervened.

And Moses said, Dread not, neither be afraid of them.

The Lord your God which goeth before you, He shall fight for you according to all that He did for you in Egypt before your eyes and in the wilderness where thou hast seen how that the Lord thy God bare thee as a man doth bear his son in all the way that ye went until ye came into this place." Notice what he says next, "...yet in this thing you did not believe the Lord your God." Now, they were, whether they realized it or not, standing on the brink of the promised land.

They were faithless instead of being faithful.

This was the great controversy playing out.

God had said, you go, I will lead you, I will open up the way before you.

He had already led them out of Egypt miraculously.

He brought them down to an ocean, opened up the Red Sea before them.

Why would you doubt anything after seeing that?

They had evidence that God was with them.

And then on the other hand, the other voice speaking to them was the voice of doubt, a voice of caviling, a voice of distrust.

Here are some faithless spies, only 10 of them, Or maybe we should say as many as 10 of them saying otherwise we can't go.

They're too big 2 voices playing out listen, you know already that I want to apply that to your heart and mine today 2 voices playing out God is said he will lead me the world the enemy of souls.

Sometimes it's your friend Sometimes it's your self-doubt saying I don't know if God can lead me.

It should have been a straightforward journey, a journey of days, maybe 10 or 11, less than 2 weeks at the most.

But they traversed the dry, rocky countryside for 4 decades.

And notice this phrase in Deuteronomy 2 verse 14, until all the generation of the men of war were wasted out from among the host." And that brings us to our man, or our woman, we don't know which.

The job of the 12 spies sent by God to investigate the Promised Land was to bring back a report.

Whoever this individual might have been would have been 1 of those people who heard their terrible report.

It's like God said to the spies, just tell us what happened.

That's all Survey the land and come on back and they did come back They said in numbers 13 and verse 27 We came unto the land with a thou sent us and Surely it floweth with milk and honey.

You remember, they brought back a bunch of grapes so big it had to be carried on a stick, 2 men carrying the thing.

It's just like we were told, Look at what grows there.

And then there came a word on which everything hinged.

Look what grows there, but the people be strong that dwell in the land.

And the cities are walled and very great.

And moreover, we saw the children of Anak there." Now verse 30 says, "'And Caleb stilled the people before Moses and said, let us go up at once and possess it, for we are well able to overcome it.

But the men that went up with him said, We be not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we.

And they brought up an evil report of the land which they had searched unto the children of Israel." There's that report, an evil report.

You know, the fact is sometimes people don't need much to discourage them.

Would God that we had died in the land of Egypt, or would God we had died in this wilderness.

Wherefore hath the Lord brought us unto this land to fall by the sword, that our wives and our children should be a prey?

Wouldn't it have been better for us to return to Egypt?

And they said to each other, Let us make us a captain, and let's go back.

They accused not only Moses, they accused God Himself of deception.

They accused God of promising them a land which they were not able to possess.

They even appointed someone to lead them back to the land of their suffering and bondage, the land from which they had been delivered by the strong arm of omnipotence.

It was terrible there They were forced to make bricks without straw They were enslaved back there But the old life of captivity was more attractive to them than the new life that God had promised him Can you imagine that?

It's like someone being put on death row, getting out of there into society and saying, I'd rather go back there.

But worse, because this had eternal consequences.

You know, I read where somebody wrote, if only the 2 men had brought the evil report and all the 10 had encouraged them to possess the land in the name of the Lord, they would still have taken the advice of the 2 in preference to the 10.

God had promised, you are going down there, I've prepared a home, I'll get you there, I will drive out your enemies, in you go.

And they saw what they saw and interpreted it to mean that God was not God.

The 1 who spoke and it was done, who commanded and it stood fast, the 1 who said, let there be light that 1 said I'll get in there I'll get you in and they went down and saw the land and then they read the signs as though it would have mean Not even God who opened up the Red Sea, not even God who hung the stars in the sky, not even God who created the trees, not even God could bring them successfully into the Promised Land.

And 1 individual was in the middle of it all.

The prayer of an unbelieving multitude would ultimately be granted.

The Lord declared this, As you have spoken in my ears, so will I do to you.

Your carcasses shall fall in the wilderness, and all that were numbered of you according to your whole number from 20 years old and upwards.

But your little ones, which you said should be a prey, them will I bring in, and they shall know the land which you have despised." And so imagine choosing not to believe God and then finding out too late that God indeed was not a liar, that God truly meant what he said.

1 by 1, the people began to fall in the wilderness.

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