Gods Sabbath

K ADESH B ARNEA

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est degree, the spirit of murmuring that was the curse of Isra el. Had he relied fully upon God, the Lord would have guided him continually and would have given him strength for every emergency.” Patriarchs and Prophets , 380.2. God had never intended that the seventy elders be appointed. Because it was not according to His plan, it developed into seri ous evil. This will always be the case when men make their own specific orders. Out of this committee developed the Sanhedrin which later put our Lord to death. What happened at Kadesh Barnea was quite different from the appointment of the magistrates and the election of the sev enty elders, and demonstrated the utter impossibility of men taking God’s place as Plan Maker and Problem Solver. The twelve selected spies were to make definite plans of their own according to what they would observe, depending on their own wisdom. They were to “... spy out the land for us and bring back a report about the route we are to take and the towns we will come to.” Deuteronomy 1:22. In this way we can see that the spies became the plan makers appointed by the people to formu late plans for the conquest, which only God could have success fully made. We have to understand that the mistake was not the plan making in itself. Often we have to make definite plans as we co work with God. The real issue was that they had lost their trust in God’s power and ability and tried to occupy His role by sup plying specific orders through human wisdom. The lesson provided in this story is both clear and impressive. Up until Kadesh Barnea, Israel had left the planning of their journey to their all-wise Plan Maker. But with their arrival at Kadesh, a new order of things was introduced. Although they had accepted God’s general orders to go into the promised land, they did not trust Him to provide specific orders. Instead, they trusted themselves and selected a committee to replace God as their plan maker. Ten of the spies, when they returned, were so intimidated by what they had seen, that the only plan they could In Summary