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Dream Word \\u2013 COURAGE

Numbers 14:31 But your little ones, whom you said would be victims, I will bring in, and they shall know the land which you have despised. NKJV

Fear is a most black, and fantastic flower, unfolding itself in the most frighteningly colourful of forms before our eyes, and filling our sniff-the air-nostrils with foul and festering fragrances. Yes, from concerned and seemingly mild musings, to loud and strong, fist-shuddering horror, the flower of fear always shakes its own stubborn stem even in the most mild of summer breezes, unknowingly to us casting forth the very seeds of our own ultimate and most deserved destruction. Yes, from sweet to sour, fear perfumes the despiser's own perverted way with the most justifying of speaking scents, saying, \\u201cWell, after all, what about the kids? We have to think about them? If anything happens to us, well, what about them? I mean, how can we provide for them if.....well, they shall never forgive us if....and if we ever did do what God seems to so audaciously intimate, even what God seemingly wildly suggests, then how could we ever provide for our family? I mean, if we went there, how would they, our children live? I mean, this demanding command of Yours, O God, seems to fanatical?... I mean, to do this, to do what You ask would be totally irresponsible....I mean, surely this is not a command to respond to with a \\u2018yes sir\\u2019 salute and a fast return to the seems with a quick-to-obey like snap? No Lord! for I perceive this to be nothing but a bear-baited trap! even a deception, that will lead to our destruction, even a madness, that if followed will surely only lead to misery. \\u201d\\xa0 Oh yes, fear is a most black, fantastic flower, its roots finding their abundant sustenance in even the scantest of doubting soils, which is nevertheless, so rich in unbelief. That is the terrible self-propagating power of fear, in that it roots itself in unbelief and then seeds the sniffer with despising doubt and self-serving protection. We call this cowardice.

From our text for tonight, we see these same flowers of fear now finding themselves even within the very tent doors of the whole camp of unbelieving Israel, whose now many open blooms, all together sucked out of the blue and sunlit skies of the waiting to be possessed, giant filled promised land, such a gross and debilitating deformity upon them all, that God, their only Saviour, could not fail to find it both offensive and disgusting to His own soul. So offensive, in fact, that He would now kill them for it. Yes, like smashed eggs over-fired in a black pan, God would scour them from this smelly vessel of unbelief and start again with a new and pollen-fear free people. Indeed, it was only Moses who stopped God from killing the self-convicted, and self-condemned nation in an instant as one man. Yes, it was only Moses that stopped God from carrying out His plan.

Restrained by the prayers of Moses then, God limits His most terrible tirade and goes to His fear poisoned, black-flower-powered people, saying, \\u201cThere is no reason for this soul of unbelief. For if you had taken the salt of My signs and wonders performed among you, and sprinkled it upon those places of unbelieving death in your hearts, then fear would have found no room to spread its roots and no sustenance to grow in. Now, not only have you have failed to deal rightly with the soul of your souls, but you have fertilized it with the mad-manure of your most consistent, and complacent disdain of Me. Therefore, concerning those whom you deceitfully feigned to fear for the most, even your children, well, it is they who shall possess that which you now most scurrilously are rejecting, and you shall never see their joy, nor settle in the sweet places I had prepared for you along with them.\\u201d

Now, granted, th