Kadesh-Barnea is a place of in-your-face impossibility. The name itself comes from a Hebrew root word meaning “fugitive, vagabond, wanderer.” In short, if you make the wrong choice here, you’ll end up wandering through a wilderness all your life.
Moses described the tragic mistake Israel made at Kadesh-Barnea (see Numbers 13-14). It happened shortly after the Red Sea crossing. God had commanded Israel to go boldly into Canaan and He had given them this powerful word of assurance:
In the message of Moses to Israel in Deuteronomy, Moses showed us the danger of unbelief. And he warned that unless we take heed, we will suffer the same awful consequences as those who fell before us: “Lest any man fall after the same example of unbelief” (Hebrews 4:11). He is saying, in essence, “It doesn’t matter what impossibilities you face, or how hopeless things may appear. You are not to fall into the same sin of unbelief. Otherwise, you’ll end up in a terrible wilderness, as they did. And you’ll wander through it for the rest of your life.
The entire book of Deuteronomy consists of a single speech by Moses, delivered just before his death. This speech was a review of the forty years Israel had spent wandering in the wilderness and Moses delivered it to a new generation of Israelites.
I didn’t realize how guilty I was of the sin of having defiled ears until I was on a preaching trip to the British Isles. My son Gary and I were being driven to a preaching event by a pastor who politely asked how our meetings had been going. When I tried to answer, he interrupted me to talk about his own preaching. This happened several times and each time, he “one-upped” me with stories of having bigger crowds and visiting more countries than I had.
“The Lord God hath given me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary: he wakeneth morning by morning, he wakeneth mine ear to hear as the learned. The Lord God hath opened mine ear, and I was not rebellious, neither turned away back” (Isaiah 50:4-5).
Psalm 50 spells out the sin of the unclean use of the mouth and its consequences. Many in God’s house have taken His Word lightly on this matter.
“Thou givest thy mouth to evil, and thy tongue frameth deceit. Thou sittest and speakest against thy brother; thou slanderest thine own mother’s son. . . . Thou thoughtest that I was altogether such an one as thyself; but I will reprove thee, and set them in order before thine eyes. . . . Whoso offereth praise glorifieth me: and to him that ordereth his conversation aright will I shew the salvation of God” (Psalm 50:19-23).
James warns the church, “The tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity; so is the tongue among our members, that it defileth the whole body, and setteth on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire of hell” (James 3:6).
We read a similar warning in Isaiah: “Then shalt thou call, and the Lord shall answer; thou shalt cry, and he shall say, Here I am. If thou take away from the midst of thee the yoke, the putting forth of the finger, and speaking vanity” (Isaiah 58:9). The Hebrew meaning of vanity here signifies rudeness, irreverence, disrespect.
Not long ago, a young man came forward during a prayer service at Times Square Church, shaking and crying. He told me he was from the state of Washington and that earlier that night he'd walked into our service accidentally. He had left and gone to a music concert, but then he left that event and returned to the church. Now he wanted prayer and so I asked him, "Are your parents Christians?" He answered, "Yes, sir. They keep praying for me."
Paul asked the Galatian church, "Ye did run well; who did hinder you that ye should not obey the truth? This persuasion cometh not of him that calleth you. A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump" (Galatians 5:7-9).