You maybe thinking this morning what does “Gideon-Type” warriors make reference to? Gideon’s name in Hebrew can be translated as “one who hews down the enemy”! And that is exactly what The Commander and Chief wants to raise up in this hour! Not believers who just stay perpetually in a combative defensive mode, but rather warriors who put on the night vision goggles and do recon up the River of God looking for M.I.A.’s in the P.O.W. camps of sin! Their whole lifestyle is to enforce and occupy the finished work of the Messiah at the Cross and they are filled with a different Spirit than other professing believers!

We see this “different spirit” mentioned for the first time in Numbers chapter 14 of which we will look into this morning.

1) The 12 spies return from doing reconnaissance of the Promised Land. Ten come back with a evil report (except for Joshua and Caleb) which was an accurate status of the strength of the enemy that was before them but they left out what God was also able to do in battle in their report to the congregation (Numbers 13:25-33)!

2) When the 10 spies make mention of the demonic race of Giants (Anakim) and the Fallen Ones (Nephilim Gen. 6:4) that is also in the land before them, immediately all the people get panic stricken with phobia and want to go back to Egypt (slavery) rather than go to war! The people care more about their self-preservation and prodigy than believing the voice of the prophetic minority (Joshua and Caleb) who want to obey God fully and ruthlessly!

3) The whole congregation then decides to appoint a new leader that will take them back into Egypt! Which represents going back to predictable lifestyles rather than the unpredictability and suddenness of living by faith for battles! War and the unknown takes courage and faith. And slavery is the full manifestation of the pathos of fear as is seen in I John 4:18. When people are in the slavery to fear they need something that is seemingly “stable” and will “systematically” take care of them….

4) As Joshua and Caleb began to preach against this rebellion of self-preservation…the whole congregation spontaneously rises up to stone them with stones. It was at this moment that the Glory of God appeared at the tent of meeting. As I have studied out the times in the Scriptures when the Glory of God has appeared in the natural…it is always when there is a judgment coming and a divine separation from the old! This is what we all must come to grips with and embrace when so many in the prayer services are calling out correctly for God’s glory to be revealed, but must now understand that it is for Judgment and Separation from the old unbelieving religious order and not for our entertaining unrealistic thoughts “that everything is just going to be all right” once the glory falls on our nations!

5) Moses intercedes and gets a stay-of-execution and forty year extension for the peoples lives…but it was a desert wandering extension of a death march so that a new generation could be raised up for war. And notice this phrase when God says, “But indeed as I live, all the earth will be filled with the Glory of the Lord”! The greatest way for God to reveal His glory is through a faith-filled people who understand war and are not bound by fear about what “could happen” to their families and children!

6) In this discourse, Caleb is singled out due to having a “different spirit” and one that followed the Lord fully. I looked up this word “different spirit” in Hebrew and it is not the word for soul (nephesh) but rather the same word for the wind and Spirit of God (Ruach)! This warrior, whose name means “dog” in Hebrew, received an impartation of the Spirit of God because he was windward for war and battle! And this was before anyone could be Born from Above through the blood of Jesus (John 3:3, II Cor. 5;17)! OHHH, so much more is available to us in this New Covenant time if we just get more courageous and bold in our faith! (See John 14: 12-18; Ephesians 3:20-21)

What else does this “different spirit” that was on Caleb allow him to later do?

1) To endure forty years of desert wandering with a bunch of stiff necked rebellious cowards! This different spirit will give you the patience and perseverance to patiently wait for God’s justice to kick in without losing your cool when you are surrounded by a bunch of cry babies!

2) When Caleb was now 85 years old he goes up and kicks out the doors of the city of Hebron and takes it as his inheritance. But a even deeper research will reveal that this 85 year old warrior went into this area and killed not just one giant as David later did…but three giants! (See Josh. 14:1-15; 15:14; Deut. 9:1-).

3) It is also interesting to note here that the reference in Hebrews 12:29 of “God being a consuming fire” is directly associated with this operation of taking the Promised land by A) destroying this fallen race of giants and other perverted demon worshipping peoples and, B) His divine jealously if they take on their idolatry of this Promised land! (See Deut. 9:1-3 and Deut.4:24)

God’s passion is burning like a fire for a people who will be courageous for His war and will not become wrapped up in the idolizing the blessings that is in the Promised Land of blessings!

It is time to rise up and ask God for this different Spirit! O Fellow Gideon Warriors!!!! You could be in a dry desert wandering march right now because your spiritual leader(s) you are sitting under has decided not to obey God fully!!! Many are in a dry desert wandering march and may never get out because of the unbelief and disobedience of those leaders they have chosen to follow! Wake up and come out from among them!!!! If you do not have an oasis or river breaking out in the desert land you are in…it is because you are not fully following the Lord but man!!! Wake up and receive a different spirit like Joshua and Caleb had!!!

May the Love of Abba flush your heart of any fear of the unknown this morning and eject you into a new courageous modis operandi of Battle!