There is an Old Testament story that parallels with what is going on in America today. The story is found in Numbers chapter 11. God had delivered His people from great bondage. They witnessed His mighty hand of power and deliverance in defeating their oppressors and leading them toward a land of promise and liberty. He even dropped “angels’ food” (called manna) from Heaven to sustain them. But after being delivered from bondage, they began to yearn for a return to Egypt. In verse 5 of that chapter, the people are recorded as complaining, “We remember the fish, which we did eat in Egypt freely; the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlick.” (KJV)
Can you believe it? After hundreds of years of floggings, imprisonments, beatings, chains, and slavery, they remember FISH? I don’t know if caviar was considered a delicacy back in those days. If it wasn’t, I suppose it’s possible that slaves ate fish eggs also. But can you believe it? After being delivered from the worst possible slavery, all they remembered was the fish? Holy Creepers, Batman!
Now, to understand what’s going on here, we have to read verse 4, “And the mixt multitude that was among them fell a lusting: and the children of Israel also.”
I have heard countless sermons on this passage, and in all honesty I cannot remember one that identified what they were lusting after. Lust here means “to covet greatly.” So, what were they coveting? Was it food? Was it the fish, cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions, and garlic? No! What they coveted, what they lusted after, was SECURITY!
In the wilderness, there was risk, uncertainty, and potential failure. They had to depend totally on divine Providence. They could not see what the morrow would hold. There were no guarantees, no entitlements, and no assurances. And even though God had delivered them with great power, sustained them daily with manna, and promised them a land of freedom of their very own, they lusted after security. To them, security was more important than liberty.
If this story does not parallel with what is happening in America right now, nothing does! God delivered the American people out of great bondage. He proved His power and might on our behalf. He gave us a land of liberty of our very own. And now all Americans seem to be able to think about are the fish, cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions, and garlic of bondage. They lust for, and greatly covet, SECURITY.
It seems that there is no usurpation of liberty so egregious that the American people, both churched and un-churched, will not gladly accept, as long as it is presented to them as a way to make them feel more secure. In truth, so many Americans–especially so many of those who call themselves Christians–are practicing idolaters. They are worshipping at the altar of safety and security. Big Government politicians and bureaucrats are the priests, the Department of Homeland Security is the temple, and the taxes, fees, and assessments are the tithes and offerings. Hallelujah!
Benjamin Franklin is quoted as saying, “They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
And that is exactly what happened to the Israelites in the wilderness. In their lust after the security of Egypt (even if it meant bondage), they so angered the Lord that He allowed them to die in the wilderness with neither liberty nor the safety that they coveted. And if America continues on its current course, this is exactly what will happen to us.
Neither Barack Obama nor Mitt Romney has done or said anything that would indicate either man has any intention of dismantling the ubiquitous surveillance society/police state that is engulfing our country. Just the opposite. Both men have committed themselves to the tyrannical provisions of the Patriot Act, the Military Commissions Act, the NDAA, etc. Neither man has any intention of dismantling the Warfare State that is leading the United States smack dab into the middle of World War III. In fact, I predict that if Romney is elected (which I think he will be), he will escalate America’s policies of military interventionism to heights never before seen. He will make G.W. Bush’s preemptive war incursions look like child’s play. (And I think the globalists know this and fully intend to put Romney in power for this very purpose.)
Noted researcher and analyst Joel Skousen quotes Daniel Indiviglio, Reuter’s Breakingviews columnist, as saying that Mitt Romney’s future wars will be a budget buster: “Mitt Romney’s foreign policy doesn’t match his thrifty approach to other spending. The U.S. Republican presidential candidate’s speech on Monday suggests a George W. Bush-like interventionist streak, another step away from the party’s pre-World War Two isolationism. That could lead to more Middle East conflict and defense spending. It’s also just as risky as President Barack Obama’s stance.”
In my opinion, Indiviglio greatly understates the problem. These modern-day Republican warmongers, including Mitt Romney, seem to have an insatiable appetite for war. In truth, if Barack Obama loses this election, he will have no one to blame but himself. If he had followed through with his commitment to end America’s military adventurism in the Middle East, he would have won in a landslide. By him choosing to not only continue, but expand, Bush’s wars in the Middle East, he put the nails in his own political coffin. The problem is, Romney will double or triple America’s Warfare State.
And don’t let anyone fool you! Ron Paul was right about “blowback.” Except for a very small minority of militant Muslim extremists, the vast majority of people in the Middle East do not hate the United States because of our freedom; they hate us for the way we have long intruded into the private affairs of their countries, and they hate us for the way we have rained down death and destruction at will upon their fathers, mothers, sons, and daughters.
Skousen writes, “Now we have strong evidence from direct interviews with a wide variety of victims that neither of the US government’s claims [of the lack of innocent people being killed by America’s drone attacks] are true. Leon Watson, of the UK Daily Mail, summarizes some of the findings: ‘Just one in 50 victims of America’s deadly drone strikes in Pakistan are terrorists –while the rest are innocent civilians, a new report claimed today. The authoritative joint study, by Stanford and New York Universities, concludes that men, women and children are being terrorized by the operations “24 hours-a day”.
“‘And the authors lay much of the blame on the use of the “double-tap” strike where a drone fires one missile–and then a second as rescuers try to drag victims from the rubble. One aid agency said they had a six-hour delay before going to the scene.’
“Hitting the relief effort can only result in more innocents killed. Everyone in the intelligence community knows that after a strike on suspected militants, all his comrades flee for their lives and try to get farther away. Only innocent relatives and relief works are present during the follow up strikes–which can only be meant to create terror.”
Come on, folks, think! How would we react if Russia or China were raining down missiles on our homes and families day after day after day? And bombing emergency workers’ relief efforts and funerals? Would not any person of decency and civility deem such practices among the most reprehensible that could ever be imagined? I mean, this is right out of 1920’s gangland atrocities. Is Al Capone in charge of our foreign policy, or what?
And Skousen (himself a Mormon), after excoriating Obama, says this about Mitt Romney: “But that isn’t to say Romney would save us from much of the Obama agenda. He’s already sending messages that he would retain most of Obamacare even if repealed. Romney’s problem is that he has too much ambition and is trying desperately to please the establishment. He has hired virtually all establishment and neocon advisors. I hope he loses–not because I want Obama back, but because the conservative movement suffers under Republican presidents who do the establishment bidding while convincing conservatives it’s the ‘right thing to do.’ It’s not.”
And all of this is being sold to the American public under the rubric of SECURITY. Our aggressive warmongering is believed to make us more secure (in reality, it makes us less secure). But security–even false security–is what the American people seem to covet. Plus, in so doing, they seem eager to put the fetters around their own necks here at home by being willing to accept a Soviet-style surveillance/police state. Just like the Israelites of old: many Americans prefer caviar, even if it comes with chains!
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