Grasshoppers

Moses, (40 years in Pharaoh's court, 40 years as a sheep herder in the desert) tells God's people that God will give them what He calls the Promised Land. It is a land flowing with milk and honey. He will settle His people down in this land and this is where He will break the Israelites off into 12 different tribes. (Descendants of Abraham, Issac and Jacob, who had spent 400 years as slaves in Egypt) However, there is one little catch to this story. Before they are allowed to enter into this Promised Land, they must all first pass a test. (Estimated 2 ½ million Jewish slaves) God allows them to stay in the wilderness for 40 years. He gives them all the basics as far as food and water in order to survive. (Nothing wears out, not even their shoes) God purposely tested His people to see if they would hold fast to Him and follow all of His ways while in this wilderness setting. Time after time, they continued to get themselves into major trouble with the Lord. (Longing for the 'flesh pots', melons and cucumbers of Egypt) Even when Moses was on the mountain, face to face with God, God's very Hand, writing down the Commandments which they would live, sin took over and they made for themselves a gold calf to worship; Moses found them dancing naked around an idol. Never think that the indecency of nudity and idol worship is new.

At one point, God got so mad at their rebellious attitude, that He literally wanted to kill them. God always draws lines, cross the line at your own risk. We have been so enamored with the Beatles music of “All You Need is Love”, or Frank Sinatra's, “I Did It My Way” that we have forgotten that our Lord is a God of Love, but also a consuming fire. Moses went into the gap for his people, pleaded his case before God as to why He should not kill His people, and the Bible says God relented and changed His mind - all because Moses stood in the gap and effectively pleaded his case before God. However, just after a little over 2 years into this 40 year wilderness journey is where they finally blew it for the last time with God the Father.

The Israelites sent twelve spies into the Promised Land to check out who the enemy was and to develop battle strategies to defeat them. God was going to allow them to go into the Promised Land, but they first had to defeat and drive out their enemies in order to conquer and possess the land. When the spies came back, ten of them came back with a bad report. (Majority reports are always popular) They said their enemies were giants and that their kingdoms were too well fortified and they wouldn't be able to defeat them. (They would look like grasshoppers) Now mind you, God had just finished pulling and delivering them out of Egypt with one of the greatest displays of His supernatural power the world has ever seen with Him throwing 10 plagues against the Egyptians and then parting the Red Sea to give them safe passage into the wilderness. (They went through parted waters on dry land)

When God saw their negative attitudes and their lack of faith and belief in Him and His power, He literally threw up His hands and said that was going to be it. At this point, He tells them that all of the men 20 years and older would not enter into the Promised Land due to their lack of faith and belief in Him. (Faith is not a feeling, it is an instilling) He said that they would all wander in the desert for the next 40 years until they all literally died out. God says that their carcasses would fall in this wilderness and that their sons would be their shepherds bearing the brunt of their infidelity towards God. With God, there are no 'civil rights'. We are wholly His. (Deuteronomy 1:36) (Caleb, whose name means dog, was given the land around Hebron “which I have visited and where the graves of Abraham and Sarah are located” and we know whose descendants own this land) The spies that went to the land did so for 40 days.(note: 40 is used throughout scripture; 40 is the number in the Bible that is always a time of 'testing'; just as Christ was 40 days in the wilderness) As a result of this bad report - God pronounces judgment that they should wander in the wilderness for 40 years to reconcile with the 40 days that they had spied out the land.

This is where Joshua and Caleb come in. God then tells Joshua and Caleb that they and the younger generation under 20 years of age would be the ones to go into the Promised Land because they had "wholeheartedly followed God." They had full faith and belief in God that He could defeat all of their enemies once they went into the Promised Land to conquer and possess it. (That they might be small like grasshoppers compared to the giants, but with one man, plus God, all things are possible. They were worshiping in the wilderness, the Creator of the Universe, who had thrown the very stars into space.)

Joshua was the leader that eventually led them in. (Across the Jordan, on dry land) Moses himself was not allowed to go in and he died and was buried out in the wilderness. Joshua then took Moses' position as leader of the Israelites. Joshua then goes into the Promised Land with his strong faith and belief in God, and then proceeds to conquer their enemies, as in Jericho, and possess the land that God had promised their forefathers: Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. This is why the above story is so powerful. The Israelites lost their one and only chance to go into this Promised Land due to one main reason - fear and lack of full faith and belief in the power of God to see them through. 365 times God speaks of fear in His Word. (best antidote for fear is faith in God) They were too scared of the giants they saw in the land they were supposed to possess - and they did not have enough faith and belief in God that He could conquer and defeat these giants for them. As a result, they lost out on the biggest blessing of their entire life. The lesson for the minority report, Joshua and Caleb, is that God provides for those who 'wholeheartedly' follow him. (1 John 3:1)

The world has become infested with 'grasshoppers', afraid of Satan's giants. Dr. Francis Schaeffer, perhaps one of the greatest preachers I've ever heard, said, “Show me what the world is doing and thinking today and I will show you what the church will be doing and thinking 7 years from now.” Yesterday, in the Michael Jackson service, we saw the graduation of the finality of the collapse of culture and community of the black citizens of our country. The racist 'hangers on' and opportunists, such as Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson, who actually stated that Michael Jackson was the greatest star in the universe, that Obama is President because of the contributions of a man of such questionable character as Michael Jackson (even his own sister called him a child molester, he even admitted to such in a television interview) The news media gave 'gavel to gavel' coverage of his pedophilia case. One black preacher, on the radio, said, “The King of Pop was very happy with the King of Kings and that Heaven is a more wonderful place with Michael in it.”

Has the demonic activity of Satan so taken over our sanity that we can accept the thievery of the likes of Bernie Madoff, knowing that such thievery continues to go on in both the public and private sectors of our country. Madoff was the one who the government sought out to give THEM advice on our country's economy! Are we so insane, that we can not realize the 'regulators', oversight committees, law enforcement, can not recognize (as was reported in this morning's news) that 10 federal buildings in Washington, DC, INCLUDING HOMELAND SECURITY, were entered, bombs were assembled in the bathrooms and the assemblers walked through the halls with the bombs in their briefcases! Two reporters from NY, (one talked with me about the incident) went aboard aircraft with the very instruments for which they search old ladies. This blind veteran, left the airport here in this city, flew to NYC, with a .22 revolver in his camera bag. I talked about this, on talk radio, and one would think SOMEONE would have investigated. From my apartment in Manhattan, I returned to my home here, with 12 pearl handled steak knives in the same camera bag.

Are we so insane, that the Governor of California, who has brought this largest state to its knees with a $24 billion debt, just a few years ago was posing in gay men's magazines as a bodybuilder? Are we so insane, that we are concerned about the 'health and welfare' of the whooping crane and the red headed vulture (among the birds on the federal endangered species list) and care nothing for the 3,000 babies murdered each day in the 'abortion mills' of our nation; any Obama nomination, is someone who totally supports his philosophy of 'anti-life', even the killing of the most innocent, in the most horrendous procedure recorded in history.

I have never understood the willingness of the people of this Democratic Republic to be re-enslaved. Those who fought for the escape from English enslavement, the millions of black-skinned Americans who through segregation and humiliation have finally escaped the enslavement of America. Then, after reopening by President Nixon, I was one of the first Americans to enter communist China. I went through the “Forbidden City”, I went through many of the other palaces of past Dynasties. I saw the 'inner courts' where the rulers controlled the millions of enslaved “coolies” outside the walls; the invention of 'flash powder' and firecrackers, all disillusioned the masses into being scared of those inside the inner city by a 'flash powder abstraction', and that there is a rarity and isolation to power. Even the rulers bound the feet of their women so they could barely hobble around. The same had happened in Egypt, keeping women and slaves separated, 'indolents' of the oppressors. Similar practices have even been an abstraction in Western Civilization, women wearing couture fashions, spiked heels, corsets, enslavement practices to keep people uncomfortable in their life. Many of the orthopedic problems of women come from footwear, dictated by fashion expectations. Fireworks displays do not celebrate those of us who have lived through bombardments, but those who have never experienced war have a peculiar excitement to the insanity of fire power and noise.

Diabolical Satanic forces, the desire for Satan to make us appear as grasshoppers, rather than real men and women, made in the image of God, capable of any accomplishment through His Grace and faith possession is the greatest lesson learned from Moses “CIA” activity. One encounter in the spies 40 day mission was a conversation with Rahab the Harlot, living in Jericho with her family. (the only ones spared when Jericho fell) She informed them that the many people in Jericho knew about the Israelites crossing these bodies of water, on dry land. Miracles never impress the non-believers, as in our nation, the only thing that impresses the non-believer are drugs and deceit. The greatest miracle, known to mankind, is 'sin's ruin and Christ's redemption'. This message has been diminished in the present pulpit. The church has just become another 'country-club', only, with a steeple.