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Blue Mountain Academy

Eric Walsh

The Power of Next Steps

We have a lot to cover and it's an important message for our time.

Our scripture reading comes from Philippians chapter 3.

It says, brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended, but this 1 thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before.

Paul says, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.

Our message tonight for consecration service is the power of next steps.

Father God, We thank you for this opportunity to study your word.

And once again, Lord, I just pray that you make me a nail hammered into the wall.

And upon that nail, Lord, hang a portrait of Jesus Christ.

I don't need to be seen or heard tonight, Lord.

This is our prayer in Jesus's precious and holy name.

If you have your Bible and you want to follow along in your Bible, we're going to be coming from the book of Numbers, the 13th chapter.

And this is at an important juncture in the story of the Hebrews as they were leaving Egypt towards the Promised Land.

To make this story fully make sense, to get all of it out of it, you have to remember that they had been in slavery for hundreds of years in Egypt.

You also have to remember it was a miraculous escape from Egypt.

10 plagues, the parting of the Red Sea, the destruction of the mightiest man on earth and his entire army in that sea.

Literally during the day when they looked up, there was a cloud that led them.

And God had something great for them to do.

He was calling them out of Egypt because what their next step was was going to be so consequential.

It was through this group of people that salvation and redemption would come to the entire world.

But the Bible says in Numbers 13, starting at verse 1, it says, And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Send thou men, that they may search the land of Canaan, which I give unto the children of Israel.

Of every tribe of their fathers shall you send a man, everyone a ruler among them.

And Moses, by the commandment of the Lord, sent them from the wilderness of Paran.

All those men were heads of the children of Israel.

So when they get near the promised land, Moses says, listen, we need to send out spies.

We want to know what happens when we take the next step.

As we go into this promised land, Moses sends out spies.

Notice that there's 1 from each tribe and notice that these are not rank and file tribe members.

The 2 that are most important are 2 men, Joshua and Caleb.

Joshua came out of the tribe of Ephraim and Caleb out of the tribe of Judah.

So we'll jump forward past all the names.

Verse 16 says, These are the names of the men which Moses sent to spy out the land, and Moses called Oshea the son of Nun, Jehoshua.

Joshua's name is changed, like Abram's, like Saul's in the New Testament.

And Moses sent them to spy out the land of Canaan and said unto them, get you up this way southward and go up into the mountain and see the land, what it is and the people that dwell therein, whether they be strong or weak, few or many, and what the land is that they dwell in, whether it be good or bad, and what cities they be that they dwell in, whether in tents or in strongholds.

It is wise, before you embark on something, to count the cost of what you're going to do.

They did not just blindly run into the promised land.

They were looking to see what they were going to face.

As you transition in life, it is wise to sit down and count the cost of the next steps.

Verse 20, and what the land is, whether it be fat or lean, whether it be wood therein or not, and be of good courage, Moses tells these 12 men, be of good courage and bring of the fruit of the land.

And this was the time of the first ripe grapes.

So they went up and searched the land from the wilderness of Zin unto Roheb as men come to Hamath.

And they ascended by the south and came unto Hebron, where Ahimon and Seshai and Talmai, the children of Anak were.

And now Hebron was built 7 years before Zoan in Egypt.

And Moses gives this little tidbit about when that city was built to let them know that these are people who have had civilization like the Egyptians did, that the cities were developed so that they wouldn't be shocked by what they find when they go in.

The Bible says, and they came unto the brook of Eskil.

Eskil means clusters, like a cluster of grapes, and cut down from their branch with 1 cluster of grapes, and they bear it between 2 upon a staff.

The grapes were so big that they would not manage in a bag from Walmart.

They had to get a staff and tie the grapes to it, and 2 of them, 1 on each shoulder, had to walk with the grapes.

They called the place Eskel because of the cluster of grapes which they found there.

The Bible says in verse 25, and they returned from searching of the land after 40 days.

40 in the Bible is a number that means a waiting period.

This last 40 days of your high school experience, That was that 40 days.

It seems like it'll take forever and then it goes by like this.

40 days and they went and came to Moses and to Aaron and to all the congregation of the children of Israel unto the wilderness of Paran to Kadesh and brought back word unto them and to all the congregation and showed them the fruit of the land.

They come and they're going to show the fruit of the labor of what they've done over the last 40 days.

They come to be reunited with everyone that they've missed.

They're coming back to the folk that they left at home.

They're coming back and they're going to see everyone.

And they have giant fruit on a staff, grapes and pomegranates and figs.

And they have the stories of the last 40 days and they get there and everyone is in anticipation.

They've been promised this land since the days of Abraham and they're so excited as to what's about to happen.

Verse 27, and they told him and said, we came unto the land, Moses, where you sent us.

And surely it flows with milk and honey, and this is the fruit of it.

And I want you to imagine what happens when they begin to unpack all that fruit.

The people ooh and ah, people are jumping up and down, they're shouting, they see these giant grapes and and these beautiful pomegranates and the figs, people start high-fiving in the crowd, they're like, man we're gonna eat, we're gonna do good.

But life can turn on a word, young people.

1 word can switch life all the way around.

And the next word recorded by the spies is the word, nevertheless.

I wanna submit to you that when you leave this place, be careful of who whispers the nevertheless in your ears.

Be careful who tells you about the fruit that you have born.

Be careful because there are those who are going to want to do to you what the 10 spies did to Israel.

Nevertheless, 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 the Amalekites in the south and the Hittites and Jebusites and Amorites are in the mountains the Canaanites are by the sea and by the coast of Jordan but Caleb stops them as they give this negative report.

He jumps in and the Bible says he steals the people.

He stops them before Moses said, let us go up at once and possess it for we are well able to overcome it.

Young people do not let the nevertheless stop you from overcoming.

Verse 31, but the men that went up with him said, we'd be not able to go up against the people.

You read in the Spirit of Prophecy, they actually cut him off because he's about to give a good report, so they stop him.

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The Power of Next Steps

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