In the second verse of this chapter, in a parenthesis, we are told that it was a place eleven days' journey from Horeb. But that does not greatly help us. What was Kadesh-Barnea? Where was it? What were its characteristics? Kadesh-Barnea lay upon the southern frontier of Canaan, just where the rolling downs of Southern Canaan descended into the desert sand, just there upon the frontier, on the borderland between Canaan and the terrible wilderness.

Israel had spent a whole year at Horeb. There the undisciplined rabble had become a marshalled army; there they had put away many of the customs and habits which had clung to them from long association with the Egyptians, and as God's sacramental host they had passed out of the wonderful natural temple constituted by the mountains of Sinai, and across the desert waste. Ah, how glad their hearts were -- what a quiver of joy passed through the host from the foremost to the rearmost ranks, as they cried, "We are reaching the land; we are coining near to the hills of Canaan;"' and when they could descry in the dim blue mist the outlines at last of the rolling country which they knew was covered with vineyards, olive-yards, and pasture-lands!

It must have been as grateful to these weary people, who had spent these months in gazing only upon ragged crags and traversing the sand dunes, to see those outlines of the hills of Canaan, as it was afterwards to the crew of Columbus to turn their gaze from the weary waste of waters to descry the outlines of the fair country that he sought. Oh, the joy of it! Oh, the triumph of it, to feel that the desert was behind, that Canaan was really in front, that a few more days must pass, and only a few, before they stood within their inheritance, the land which God had bound Himself to give to their fathers. Oh, blessed, blessed vision! Up came Moses, the lawgiver, the princes of Israel, the warriors, the priests, the Levites with their sacred burden, the women with the children! -- they all came at last up from the desert, and felt beneath their feet the soft sward of Palestine that seemed to announce that at last their long, weary journey was at an end.

They did not realize that they were to retreat from that point, and go back again into the wilderness from which they were emerging. It never entered their minds to suppose that forty years of wandering were to intervene between that moment and the other moment when they should cross the Jordan to inherit the land. They little deemed that one by one all that host, which seemed like the flowers upon the meadows of May, was to fall before the reaper's scythe of death; that two only were to enter the land; and that their children, who were growing up around them, young men and women under the age of twenty, were to take their own place before God's promise was fulfilled.

All this, of course, is intended to supply some deep lesson for ourselves. Probably there is not one person who is truly converted to God that has not at some time come to Kadesh-Barnea. Some have come thither and passed that way into the land of promise. Some have come thither and settled down, and remain always between the desert on the one hand and the land of rest on the other, sometimes making an incursion into the one and then an incursion into the other, but living a border life between them. Perhaps some years ago you came to Kadesh-barnea, but were bidden to retreat from it. Perhaps you look back upon one radiant moment when you were nearer God, nearer rest, nearer peace, nearer the fruition of the perfect life than you have ever been since. Since that moment you have been treading again the desert waste, and have known the infinite bitterness of its restlessness, its weariness, its hunger and thirst. Every soul in the course of its pilgrimage comes presently to Kadesh-barnea.

Let us be very precise that we make no mistake. Kadesh-barnea does not stand for regeneration. Regeneration may be set forth in the fact that Israel in Egypt was God's child, though bound beneath the bondage of Pharaoh and groaning beneath the tale of bricks, often lashed by the scourge -- the cruel knout. Therefore, whatever Kadesh-barnea stands for, it does not represent the fact of the new birth by the Word and Spirit of God. You must be born again before you can come to Kadesh-barnea; but you may have been born again and yet never have come out of Egypt; or you may have come out of Egypt and reached Sinai and never come to Kadesh-barnea. It is not enough for you to say that you are God's children; there are heights beyond depths of experience, much more to know and experience.

Kadesh-barnea does not stand for redemption by blood. This is set forth by the Paschal Lamb, the sprinkled blood, the exodus in that night which was much to be remembered. The people needed to be redeemed before they could come to Kadesh-barnea, but being redeemed did not necessarily involve the attainment of Kadesh-barnea. Is it not so with you? You may have been born from above; may know what it is to have been redeemed by the blood of Jesus, and yet there is something beyond in your experience. You have never come to Kadesh-barnea.

I. What then. Does Kadesh-barnea Stand for?

It stands for that moment in a man's life when he has the opportunity of forsaking the wilderness and entering into the land of rest. And what does the wilderness stand for?

(1) Kadesh is rest. The wilderness stands for purposeless wandering. If you were to trace, with the help of the Book of Numbers, which enumerates the successive encampments of Israel, the course of the people through the wilderness, you would find it was zigzag, backwards and forwards, again and again going over the same ground, making no regular advance towards their goal. So it is in much of our life. There is too much purposeless wandering. We start up to do a deed for God, but presently fail in it, relinquish our activity, and drop back into inertia. We say to ourselves: We will be pure, and strong, and holy; but after awhile the wing flags, the speed stays, and we, who have burned for a moment like seraphs, search vainly our hearts to And one spark of light and heat. How much of our life has been filled with these zigzag and unsatisfactory experiences, tracing and retracing, always learning the same lessons, sitting on the same form, put back to the old experiences, but never coming to the knowledge of the truth!

Kadesh-barnea, on the other hand, stands for the moment in a man's life when he for evermore quits and leaves this wretched, unsatisfactory experience, and with a purpose in his heart, cries: "Leaving the things that are behind, I press towards the goal for the prize of my high calling of God in Christ Jesus."

(2) Kadesh stands for satisfaction. The wilderness stands for want, for unsatisfied longing. God suffered them to hunger and thirst. It seems as though they were never content. Whatever God did for them or did not do, they murmured at it. However lavishly He spread their table, they longed for the leeks and garlicks and onions of the Nile. Why did He not let us die in the wilderness? Why did He not allow us to And our graves in Egypt? Why has He brought us here to die of thirst and hunger? Oh, the constant dissatisfaction of the wilderness life. This has had its counterpart with each of us, always thirsting for satisfaction; but' as in the fable of Tantalus, the water always evading the thirsty lips which are put down to slake their 'burning fever; always going to the well to draw, and bringing the water back in a leaking pitcher, which as we reach home is found to be empty; always gathering the apples which turn out to be rotten; -- the apples of Sodom. Oh, how often we have thought, if God were to give me this, all my days would be filled with music, with the light and warmth of summer! but when God has given our heart's desire, leanness has come into our soul.

But Kadesh-barnea is the moment in a man's life when he leaves behind the dissatisfaction, the desires which are never perfectly at rest, when he discovers the truth of what Jesus said: "He that drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst, but it shall be in him a spring of water rising up into everlasting life."

(3) Kadesh stands for Victory, The wilderness stands for failure and defeat. The enemies sweep around the camp and cut off the stragglers; Israel is not able to hold its own against Amalek, or if it does for a brief interval, then Amalek, which stands for the flesh, presently gathers to itself new force and overcomes. The wilderness is always the land of defeat. You prize yourself that you are going to conquer this time -- you even pray that you may; you vow that you will; you wonder that you have ever yielded before; you argue with yourself against ever yielding again; you say to yourself: shall not yield this time, I will be strong; why can I not be man enough to put my foot upon the neck of this evil thing? Why should I not be a conqueror You go into the battle full of self-confidence; but before ever the battle has waxed hot you find yourself trampled in the very dust of defeat; your brave weapons are broken around you, your armor hacked through and splintered to pieces. But Kades-barnea is the point in a man's life when he leaves behind this weary experience of defeat, and enters into that life of victory where no evil thing is able to stand against him, and he goes from victory to victory through Him that loved him.

Where are you today? Are you still in the wilderness of purposeless wandering; still hungering and thirsting; still vanquished and overcome? O, poor soul, why should you not this very day come up to Kadesh-barnea, not merely to touch it and see the land beyond, not to sojourn in its homes for one brief hour, but to live there, and to make it the starting-point from which you should go forward into ever new experience of the rest, satisfaction, and victory which accrue from faith? That, then, is what Kadesh-barnea stands for. Have you passed it, or are you living in it, or have you not come to it as yet?

II. What Made the Difference in the Experience OF THE People that Visited Kadesh-barnea?

The answer is certain -- Unbelief, which showed itself in many ways. First, it manifested itself by sending the spies to examine the land. Surely that was a great mistake. When God gives aught to us, we should receive it without inquiring as to its worth and value. The fact that God had promised to give this land, and that He had pledged His troth that it flowed with milk and honey, was surely enough to silence every question. How came it that they spied out the land? Was not that very impertinent act of theirs a confession that they did not perfectly trust the Word of God?

The second manifestation of the spirit of unbelief was that, through the eyes of the ten spies, they considered its cities and the giants to the exclusion of God. There were giants certainly, and cities walled up to heaven; there were immense difficulties confronting them, which might be viewed in different ways. The ten, who followed the devices of their own hearts, spelled giants with a capital G, and God with a little g. But the two, though they saw these difficulties, had such a view of God's omnipotence that they spelt giant with a little g, and God with a capital. God filled their horizon; God seemed all-sufficient for their need; and they said. If He delight in us. He is well able to bring us in and give us the land. It was the difference between unbelief and faith, between looking at circumstances first and God second, or looking at God first and circumstances afterwards; the difference that comes to all of us is as to whether we are going to magnify the difficulty or magnify the name of Jehovah, who does wonderful things for those who trust Him.

Have you learned this elementary lesson? It seems impossible that you should ever move with a direct intention towards the* goal of your life; that you will ever be satisfied in this world; that you should ever cease from being overcome by your enemies or have the victory; but if you will learn the lesson of today, and no longer count on your poor resources, but live looking fox everything from God' then you will have rest and victory. The moment your soul hangs on God and expects everything from Him' you leave the Kadesh-barnea behind forever, and enter into the land of rest where God is the one all-sufficient answer to every doubt and fear, every misgiving and dread.

III. How Are We To Obtain this Faith that Carries Us Beyond the Frontier into the Land of Rest?

In the Epistle to the Hebrews (ch. iv.), we have it stated exactly: Cease from your own works. "He that is entered into his own rest, he also hath ceased from his own works, as God did from His." It is your own fussy activity which is invalidating everything. You remember how, in the old mythologic fable, the goddess took her child and dipped him in the immortalizing river, and he was made impervious to any weapon, except at the heel by which she held him; it was there he was shot with the fatal arrow. If you trust in God ninety-nine parts of a hundred, but in the hundredth part are relying on your own works, prayers, preparation or tears, you may depend upon it that that will invalidate everything. We get rest only when, by the grace of God, we cease from our own works that we may enter into His; and, having made Him first, begin to work, not up to His help, but down from it. Cease from your own works that you may work the works of God. Cease from your own energy that the energy of God may operate through you. Cease from self, that God may be all in all, and originate more abiding results than you could ever have achieved.

Cease from your sinful works. If there is any known sin in your life which you cherish, which you cuddle and fondle in your bosom, which you fee*l you want and will not renounce, remember, as long as it is not judged, it will invalidate your faith. You cannot trust God absolutely whilst you make provision for the flesh to fulfil the lust thereof. You must, in the intention of your will and the choice of your heart, cease from sinful works.

Cease from legal works. Too often we have sought to justify ourselves before God; to do things which would make ourselves more pleasing in His sight; we have forgotten that our righteousnesses were as filthy rags. We, like Cain, have brought the fruits of our own producing. But we must put away our legal works, our own righteousness, our own efforts to sanctify ourselves. We are not saved by works, but created in Christ for them.

Cease from selfish works, We must endeavor to be good, earnest, and obedient, not because of any profit that may accrue, but for God's sake and because it is right.

"Cease from your sinful works: from your legal works; from works that have self as the pivot and centre. Have done with it all, and taking up the foot which has so long touched the shelving bottom of the beach, launch yourself upon the upbearing wave. You will never know what the buoyant water will do until you have trusted it. Let yourself go, and then, when God is all and in all, when you let God do in and through you the purpose of His will, then the wilderness life of the seventh of Romans is abandoned for the Canaan life of the eighth chapter; then you leave Kadesh-barnea for the Land of Promise.

But if you refuse, there is nothing for it but for you to turn back and go for your forty years of wandering. A child? -- Yes. Redeemed? -- Yes. Destined to go to heaven? Yes. But missing, fatally missing, that blessedness which in this life is within the reach of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises-- Consecrated Life.