we were like grasshoppers sermon
read more, Scripture: The grasshopper mentality was a self-concept. TEXT: Numbers 13: 25-33; 14: 6-10; Josh. Caleb, one of two spies who bring a more hopeful account of the land, tries to calm the people and tells them: We should go up at once and possess the land for surely we are able to do so! Have you not heard? Judges 7:8-14 Their protection is removed from them and the Lord is with us. Numbers 15:14For the generations to come,whenever a stranger or anyone else living among you presents a foodofferingas an aroma pleasing to theLord, they must do exactly as you do. TOPIC: The Mountain Top Being part of something larger and lasting, McCarthy extols ties at Knesset, vows full support for Israeli security against Iran, White House reiterates Netanyahu to get invite but visit not currently planned, Levin accuses US administration of cooperating with judicial overhaul opponents, Gantz: No progress in talks with government on judicial reform compromise, Report: Israel got intel on Irans secret nuclear weapons program from executed spy, TA police chief refuses to discuss transfer with commissioner: An invalid procedure. Its OK to be afraid, young grasshoppers, but as the Midrash suggests fear is a type of darkness that must be managed. A naysayer will allow what is big to become irrationally bigger. The passage says they saw the descendants of Anak there. We nourish our faith. Have you ever noticed that before? He cares for you. 15The community is to have the same rules for you and for the stranger residing among you; this is a lasting ordinance for the generations to come. What have they, as a nation, seen? Heres the context: God tells Moses to send scouts to spy out the land of Canaan, to see what the land is like, what types of agriculture it supports, what the people who inhabit it are like, are they strong or weak, are their cities fortified or not? Its life that we find in Christ. They prepare for According to 2 Corinthians 5:7 we walk by faith and not by sight . Ill stop the moment He shows up. Unbelief tells us, God wont be showing up. Thats the attitude of the spies who bring the bad report. It is curiously odd that people who are filled with horrified indignation whenever a cat kills a sparrow can hear the story of the killing of God told Sunday after Sunday and not experience any shock at all. There we saw the giants . So, the cause of their discouragement was (1) dependence on men not God; (2) listening to the many not the few; (3) heeding the bad news not the good. WHY DO WE TAKE OUR EYES OFF THE ONE WHO CAN WALK ON WATER WHEN THE STORM IS RAGING ALL AROUND US? Part three, as traditionally interpreted, is simply an elaboration of part two: We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes and in theirs. One last lesson thats really about right now, this place and this moment: There is in this world much of which to be afraid. Thats the first matter of faith that we have to occupy yourselves with here this morning. The working title of my next book, co-authored with Micha Price, is 'A Biblical Guide to the Climate Crisis'. Step On the Grasshoppers! We must learn to dream big for God for As A Man Thinks In His Heart, So Is He (Pro. The nourishing of faith is all of our individual responsibility. Leave that bad apple in the bunch long enough and watch what happens. Amen? We are still grappling with the challenge of how to rule justly a land in which the strangers who live among us are the people we once conquered. My challenge to us is this lets be a people of faith. wonderfuljesus8 April 8, 2018 Faith, Victorious Living Abraham, Faith, frame of reference, Grasshopper, hard times. Its come from reflecting on the fact that God has brought them this far not to forsake them. Its about making us cynics. Maybe, as the Midrash suggests, the Canaanites saw them as angels? The majority report can be summed up by three words: grapes, giants and grasshoppers. There is no other save Christ. Ten spies bring a negative report. A couple of years ago around this time of year I was sitting right up there in that portion of the balcony up there and Ralph Kelley was preaching and challenged us at the beginning of 2018 to be a people of the Word. He was in despair, even to the point of saying, All in vain have I kept my heart clean and washed my hands in innocence, for all the day long I have been stricken. Then he says this, If I had said, I will speak thus, I will say these things out loud, I would have betrayed the generation of Your people. Asaph understands something. However, the very next word in the NIV says, but. Isnt there always a big but? It does flow with milk and honey and my goodness look at this fruit, BUT the people that live there are powerful. Grapes, Giants, Grasshoppers and God. Some of the best advice I have ever received was when I made a statement like that to a pastor friend. However, the inhabitants are fierce, their cities are well-fortified, and there are even giants there. JESUS WANTS US TO CAST OUT DEMONS AND REJOICE THAT OUR NAMES ARE WRITTEN IN THE HIS BOOK OF LIFE, Scriptures: HERO Def: If The Preacher Is Dead, The Sermon Will Be Dead, Chasing The Dream, Preaching Greatness, And Knowing Your Audience. There is limited thinking which produces limited abilities that gives limited results. Would it not be better for us to go back to Egypt? Theyre saying, The Lord is bringing us here to kill us! Unbelief, of this sort, carries with it the echo of Eden God is not good. "We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them." Our own eyes. In order to do so, we have to resolve that there is nothing bigger than God Almighty. When the spies say, and so we were in their eyes as well, the Kotzker replies: Whats with this?!?!? Asaph I appreciated our reading of Asaph this morning and recognized that he is remembering those deeds of God as you look through the latter half of Psalm 77 and feeding his heart on the deeds of God for His people. Grapes, Giants, Grasshoppers and God Numbers 13:17-13:33 For full copyright, reproduction and permission information, please visit the First Presbyterian ChurchCopyright, Reproduction & Permission statement. They were perceived as giants. Some of you have been wandering in your own wilderness for a long time. Shaalu Shalom Yerushalayim activists visit the Sumarin family at their home in East Jerusalem, January 2020. Psalm 73 is one of those gritty psalms. Please contact us in case of abuse. To start saving items to a SermonFolder, please create an account. These men heard this report and begin to make sounds that didnt have a lot of thought with them and before long, the chirping was throughout the people. This is the first sermon in a series on. A doubt-caster takes naysaying to a whole new level. They start exaggerating and trying to scare the Israelites. Responding with fear, not courage. They all will spoil. Romans 5:6-For when we were still without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly. They had a "grasshopper mentality.". They get on the southern edge of the Promised Land, and they get a glimpse of this land and its inhabitants. 14: 6-15 Isnt it? Yet by the end of the parsha, he is already including non-Israelites (ger in Hebrew, often translated stranger, as below, but best understood as resident alien) as beneficiaries of, and even, participants in sacrificial offering and associated rituals. Lets read from Numbers chapter 13, beginning with verse 30. Should there be questions regarding grammar or theological content, the reader should presume any website error to be with the webmaster/transcriber/editor rather than with the original speaker. YET GOD WANTS TO GIVE US SO MUCH MORE THAN THAT. Part 14 - Matthew 10:18-19 - GRASSHOPPER, EXPECT THE UNEXPECTED! But we mustnt let our fears get the better of us. Charlie brown, I read this week of some fears that and we were like grasshoppers in our own sight, and so we were in their sight" (Num. HOW TO HAVE Joel Osteen (May-16-2022) Today's Word: Grasshopper Disease. 4. The doubt-caster will be one that says their way is the right way, there is no other way and whoever doesnt see their way will never be right. We need the language of confidence in God. Indeed, we need words of life. Well theres another thing for us to think about and its, What does this passage teach us about unbelief? Unbelief is kind of where we are naturally. The 2018 season of excavation at a Late Roman synagogue at Huqoq revealed more fascinating mosaics, including this one referencing Numbers 13:23: two Israelite spies sent by Moses to scout out the land of Canaan carrying a pole with a cluster of grapes. The perception became their reality. Well, were not standing before the land but were standing before an unknown year. Theres no reckoning of confidence in God as they make their report. Do so here this day. Do you hear the grasshopper which is at your feet?. James O. Davis is the founder and president of Second Billion (TM). Try, If The Preacher Is Dead, The Sermon Will Be Dead, Chasing The Dream, Preaching Greatness, And Knowing Your Audience. We hate Him. Lesson number one, young grasshoppers: there are many ways of knowing, many ways of seeing, many ways of apprehending and sensing. Yet for all they have experienced about God, for the good report they could have given at testimony time, they lacked the faith to enter the promised land. The land that God promised them the land and they only had to go and process it. When they saw the Nepthalim they said they became like "grasshoppers." We want to look at this "grasshopper" complex later in the message. To think of a few, Psalm 23, The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. Later in the scene, the master instructs the boy: I hear the water. The grasshopper syndrome: "We saw the giantsand we were like grasshoppers in our own sight" (Num. Numbers 13:32-33 tells us the whole story of the mistakes made just this side of glory but to sum it all up quickly, THEY REFUSED TO HAVE FAITH THAT GOD WAS IN CONTROL.. Numbers 13:26 They came back to Moses and Aaron and the whole Israelite community at Kadeshin the Desert of Paran. We stand at the edge of a new year, one that will be full of joys and blessings and sorrows and obstacles. As Rabbi Steven Kushner puts it: their sin wasnt simply that they lost faith or that the scouts had misrepresented what they had seen Their failure wasnt even that they had low self-esteem, that they saw themselves as grasshoppers. We seemed . PADI Save Our Ocean Pledge, Aliza Licht on being the Chief Brand Officer of YOU, Where To Go Next? We trust none other to be right with God save the person of Jesus Christ and the work that He has done on our behalf to save sinners. This is in the midst of the report from the spies: But Caleb quieted the people before Moses and said, Let us go up at once and occupy it, for we are well able to overcome it. Then the men who had gone up with him said, We are not able to go up against the people, for they are stronger than we are. So they brought to the people of Israel a bad report of the land that they had spied out, saying, The land, through which we have gone to spy it out, is a land that devours its inhabitants, and all the people that we saw in it are of great height. John 3:16 It was a theme last week too, when the Israelites complain about manna and are given a nauseating over-supply of quails, and it will return next week, when the earth opens its mouth and swallows the rebellious Korach and his band. And so we were in their sight An hyperbole, signifying that the Anakims looked down upon them with the utmost contempt. On a mountain where 90 read more, Scripture: Best sermon on what a hero/leader is like. , . This was the children of Israel's problem in this story. He ended up digging a 12 foot hole and could not find anything. And there we saw the giants, the sons of Anak, who come of the giants. The twelve spies whom Moses sent in to report on the Promised Land saw the same things. Almost all other occurrences of the word refer to insects, and indeed, the noun associated with this verb, sheretz, means insect. INTRODUCTION: Do you believe God is a loving God? Numbers 13:23When they reached the Valley of Eshkol. Numbers 13 1 The Lord said to Moses, 2 Send some men to explore the land of Canaan, which I have given to the Israelites. They werent enough. Its natural for the scouts to be afraid they are a group of former slaves who must imagine what it would mean to conquer a land populated by other nations with armies and fortified cities and men of great stature. Sitting next to her lemonade stand/office, Lucy prepares to offer her sage advice, More significantly, parshat Balak, which is coming up soon, opens with statements by the Moabites and their king that mirror exactly the sentiment I think the spies have in mind when they describe themselves as grasshoppers. When the spies say, and so we were in their eyes as well, the Kotzker replies: Whats with this?!?!? Well, one last thing. A Leader Is A Hero Fortified cities up to the heavens! Both seem to be a great source of protein. A couple of months ago, David Strain was preaching through 1 Peter chapter 2 and he preached on the passage where Peter is urging the people of God to crave the pure spiritual milk of the Word. Father, this is Your Word. Part one continues the theme of food and eating: The land eats its inhabitants. We mine Gods Word for what He has promised. THE HOLY SPIRIT WANTS TO EMPOWER US AND FILL US WITH GRACE SO THAT WE CAN BE A LIGHTHOUSE TO A LOST AND DYING WORLD AROUND US. Joshua 14:6-14, Denomination: So, he would dig some more. God is your refuge .read more. Thats what Jesus described as being born again. That was the terminology He used in talking with Nicodemus. The Lord who delivered me from the paw of the lion and from the paw of the bear will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine. Caleb, in verse 30 of the passage we just read, urging his people, Let us go up at once and occupy it, that is the land, for we are well able to overcome it. Joshua, joining Caleb in chapter 14 as this discussion continues, trying to calm the people and inspire them to trust the Lord whos brought them this far, If the Lord delights in us, He will bring us into the land and He will give it to us, a land that flows with milk and honey. It is reassuring to know that mans strength and mans host mean nothing to God. Psalm 78:41, Numbers 13:1-33, Denomination: Presbyterian/Reformed.