As we’re still in Easter season, let’s remember this feast, and know that after the people made the Passover tradition, and after that God took them out from the land of Egypt, He wanted them to cross over at “ Kadesh Barnea” first.
Why “Kadesh Barnea”?
According to (Smith's Revised Bible Dictionary (1999)) this word means:
The “precise spot”, this synonym has a very deep spiritual meaning.
God made many miracles in front of His people in Egypt, then He departed the red sea in two and they crossed it as if it was a dry land, and He made Pharaoh and his army sink in it, and He took His people to “Kadesh Barnea”. All that which God did for them was in order to prepare them to enter the promised land, He wanted to raise their faith and deliver them, He wanted to take Egypt out of their hearts, it was time to take the “slave mentality” out of them, and to make them know that the battle for fulfilling the promise was out of reach in their own power, and that He doesn’t want them to go in this war by their own power.
And He tried to make them understand this lesson at the red sea, when Moses said to them:
" Do not be afraid. Stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord, which He will accomplish for you today… The Lord will fight for you, and you shall hold your peace " (Exodus 14 : 13 – 14).
“stand still” is not a passive sentence it means:
“stand firm on your ground, do not give up, do not pull back and try to find another way”.
And when they obeyed, they witnessed a miracle, which I don’t think any mind would expect !!!
But after all these preparation, they reached “Kadesh Barnea” the precise or crucial spot, which was at the gates of the Promised Land, and from there Moses sent the ten spies to spy on the land, and let’s read together what he said to them when he reminded them of this incident:
Thus your fathers did when I sent them away from Kadesh Barnea to see the land. For when they went up to the Valley of Eshcol and saw the land, they discouraged the heart of the children of Israel, so that they did not go into the land which the Lord had given them. So the Lord’s anger was aroused on that day, and He swore an oath, saying: Surely none of the men who came up from Egypt, from twenty years old and above, shall see the land of which I swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, because they have not wholly followed Me, except Caleb the son of Jephunneh, the Kenizzite, and Joshua the son of Nun, for they have wholly followed the Lord. So the Lord’s anger was aroused against Israel, and He
made them wander in the wilderness forty years, until all the generation that had done evil in the sight of the Lord was gone ". (Numbers 32 : 8 – 13).
" Likewise, when the Lord sent you from Kadesh Barnea, saying: Go up and possess the land which I have given you, then you rebelled against the commandment of the Lord your God, and you did not believe Him nor obey His voice " (Deuteronomy 9 : 23).
" And you complained in your tents, and said: Because the LORD hates us, He has brought us out of the land of Egypt to deliver us into the hand of the Amorites, to destroy us " (Deuteronomy 1 : 27).
After they reached the gates of the Promised Land which God had promised them to possess, and after they saw the miracles the Lord performed in front of them, they disobeyed God and refused to enter the Land, they were bitter and they complained, and they accused God of hatred toward them, saying that He took them out of Egypt to destroy them !!!
And the result was to wander in the wilderness for forty years until all the generation that had done evil in the sight of the Lord was gone.
And the question is why did they do this?
Because they had a “slave mentality”.
What does this mean?
Let’s see together.
Let’s go back to Egypt to see what they went through:
" So the Egyptians made the children of Israel serve with rigor. And they made their lives bitter with hard bondage - in mortar, in brick, and in all manner of service in the field. All their service in which they made them serve was with rigor " (Exodus 1 : 13 – 14).
They were severely enslaved by the Egyptians, they made their lives miserable, they gave them the clay and made them make the bricks, but the Lord saw their humiliation and his heart was softened on them, and their cries reached His ears, so He decided to deliver them, and He rose Moses and sent him to Pharaoh to tell him the command of the Lord saying: " Let My people go, that they may hold a feast to Me in the wilderness " (Exodus 5 : 1).
But Pharaoh’s reaction was as follow: " So the same day Pharaoh commanded the taskmasters of the people and their officers, saying: You shall no longer give the people straw to make brick as before. Let them go and gather straw for themselves. And you shall lay on them the quota of bricks which they made before. You shall not reduce it " (Exodus 5 : 6 – 8).
Pharaoh hardened the work, and increased their humiliation, and the slavery got heavier on them.. But after sending the ten plagues on Egypt, the Lord took His people out of Egypt with a mighty hand, and made them cross the red sea and He destroyed Pharaoh and his army..
They went out of Egypt but the more dangerous problem remained in them.. Egypt and its slavery didn’t get out of their hearts !!!
They walked with the Lord in the wilderness and they saw His miracles but “the slave mentality” remained rooted in them.
And the Lord said to them these expressive deep words: " For the land which you go to possess is not like the land of Egypt from which you have come, where you sowed your seed and watered it by foot, as a vegetable garden; but the land which you cross over to possess is a land of hills and valleys, which drinks water from the rain of heaven, a land for which the Lord your God cares; the eyes of the Lord your God are always on it, from the beginning of the year to the very end of the year " (Deuteronomy 11 : 10 – 12).
What does this mean?
Egypt land is plain, there is no hills no valleys, its geography confirms this.. so the Lord was telling them:
“It is easy to water the ground of that land in a simple way and with few capacities, but the land you’re going into is not like the land of Egypt, it is not plain, it is a land of hills and valleys, you can’t water it with your own capacities, you can’t water it with the same ways you used in Egypt, I will water it from the rain of heaven, I take care of it and watch over it with my eyes always, every day, from the beginning of the year till its end.. don’t you try doing it with your own hands because you will surely fail”.
What does this mean also?
Don’t count on your capabilities when faced by hills and valleys and hardships which try to hinder you from fulfilling the promises I gave you, because these capabilities will not help you overcome them, it is my hand and my power which will do the work, all you have to do is to believe in me, to trust me, to remove these hindrances standing before you and make you possess the land, especially after you’ve seen my miracles.
Beloveds: “the slave mentality” means that when you’re asked to do something, you look at the straws and the chaff you have, to do it. You look at your small capacities in face of high huge hard things that you should cross over, and you discover that it is impossible to be done, and the worse of all, is that instead of lifting up your eyes and looking at the Lord to give you strength, you murmur and complain, and this is what happened with the people after spying the Promised Land.
They saw the children of Anak tall, so they looked at what is in their hands from straws and chaff as they’re used to do in Egypt, so they realized that their capacities can’t overcome them, and they said: we are like locusts in their eyes, this is the first mistake, but the second mistake is more important, instead of crying out to the Lord like Moses did in front of the red sea, they murmured and complained, so they got killed by the burning snakes which symbolize Satan and his army.
The slave mentality: when faced by wars and hardships, I look at my capabilities, I find them not enough, I complain on God, and the result is wandering in the wilderness for forty years, and not entering the Promised Land or fulfilling the promises, the slave mentality says: there is straws and chaff, so I can make the bricks, I have no capacities in my hands, I can’t, the slave mentality makes us murmur and complain and open the door to the burning snakes !!!
The free mentality or the children of God mentality: when faced by wars and hardships, I look at the Lord and His ability, I trust Him and cry out to Him with faith, and He gives me strength, He gives me feet like the deer so I can climb the hills, He makes the mountains and the hills plain before me, so I go and possess the land, and witness the fulfillment of the promises, the free mentality says: our God is the God of the hills, our enemies know this, it is a shame for us not to know it, the word of God says:
" Then the servants of the king of Syria said to him: Their gods are gods of the hills. Therefore they were stronger than we… " (1 Kings 20 : 23).
A man of God says:
“Part of the slave mentality was murmur, complaint and grumble, because the slave doesn’t have a father to provide him his needs, he doesn’t have a shelter or a provision, that’s why when things get harder he starts complaining and grumbling, but the Lord has different ways which He prepared for us, we have a rich Father, capable and mighty, when things get harder in our face, we can cry out to Him with faith, and He will push us forward making the hills plains for us”.
So I beg you now to proclaim that you will get rid of the slave mentality.
What God wants you to do today, is to take off your eyes from the hard circumstances around you, which are hindering you from fulfilling the promises, because when the burning snakes bite the people, the Lord said to them: " lift up your eyes ", for help will not come from your circumstances, neither from what you have in your hands of straws and chaff, but from the Lord..
When our vision is based on our circumstances and what we have in our hands, our faith will not rise at all.
Today the Lord is saying to us:
“if your faith is weak in front of the wars going on against you, and in front of the hardships coming your way, I want you to break the vision and mentality of slaves, which is limited by the portion of straws you have in your hands and by the number of bricks you have to make, I want to show you something new, and that is when you look up, when you look to me and hold on to my vision your faith will rise, it will get stronger and harder, and when you will own this faith you can move and possess the land and the promises”.
Today I want you to break the limited, oppressed, depressed vision we are heading toward knowing the reality of His promise and the prosper future He prepared for us.
Beloveds: each time we carry the burdens on our shoulders this means we have the slave mentality, because the Lord asked us to put our burdens and worries on Him, for Him to carry them, and He said to us: if the Son set you free you are free indeed.. let us have the mind of Christ which contradicts the slave mentality. A Mind, the winds, the storms, the waves didn’t stand before Him, He made them still with one word..
we still have many lands to possess, and these lands are made of hills and valleys, it is not a plain land like Egypt for us to be able to deal with it with a straw and chaff mentality, we need to believe that the Lord is watering it from the rain of heaven, and His eye is always on it, we need to trust that He is the God of the hills, and He wants to remove them from our way, as well as He wants to give us the feet of the deer so we can walk on them as we should.. so let’s cry out to Him with faith today and proclaim together that He will lift us up from the pit of making bricks out from chaff and straws, and put us on the way of possessing promises and lands, let’s ask Him to take us to “Kadesh Barnea” the precise and crucial spot, where we drew back when faced by hardships and mountains, and where we saw the children of Anak, where we murmured and complained and opened the door for the burning snakes, let us stand with Him anew, looking at Him and at His ability, believing in Him, so we can throw away all straws and chaff from our hands, saying with Caleb and Joshua:
" … Let us go up at once and take possession, for we are well able to overcome it… The land we passed through to spy out is an exceedingly good land. If the Lord delights in us, then He will bring us into this land and give it to us, ‘a land which flows with milk and honey.’ Only do not rebel against the Lord, nor fear the people of the land, for they are our bread; their protection has departed from them, and the Lord is with us. Do not fear them " (Numbers 13 : 30, 14 : 7 – 9).
To our God be all Glory !!!
