Numbers 11:24-30 Bible Study | Episode 749

August 22, 2024

Hope Alive: Applying God’s Word to Your Daily Life

Numbers 11:24-30   Bible Study | Episode #749

I am Chad Harrison, and I am the teaching pastor of Lake Community Church and had been serving as a pastor for 25 years. I'm also a practicing attorney. This podcast is designed to help you study God's word and find God's will for your life. The purpose of studying scripture is that you might know the character of Jesus Christ, and that you might see the world from the Father's perspective. That you gain wisdom that changes your life. I pray in the name of Jesus right now that God would open His word to you and allow you to see Him and to know Him. To know His will, that you might glorify Him and that you might walk in faith and power each day, especially today. In Jesus name.

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Transcript

This is Chad Harrison, and you're listening to hope alive, applying God's word to your daily life. Hi, this is Chad Harrison, and I am the teaching pastor of Lake Community Church and have been serving as a pastor for 25 years. I'm also a practicing attorney. This podcast is designed to help you study God's word and find God's will for your life. I pray in the name of Jesus right now that God would open up his word to you and allow you to see him and to know him and to know his will, that you might glorify him and that you might walk in faith and power each and every day, especially today, in Jesus name.

Well, good morning. Welcome to Lake Community Church's morning Bible study. We are in numbers, chapter eleven. Numbers, chapter eleven. And we are dealing with, well, an interesting happening. It was a happening that took place in the Old Testament. It's got some correlation to some New Testament ideas. For some people, it is just a clear correlation, and for other people, it's not. It doesn't have anything to do with the New Testament. For me, I think it has some value. I think there's something here. I'm not sure that I'm going to go so far as to tell you that this is definitely something. It's something that's in the New Testament. But I am going to say to you that there's reason to believe that there's some. Anytime you have script in scripture, two vietnamese that have a lot of similitudes, or they're similar, if you've got those things, then you need to probably look at them and see if. See if you can learn anything from them. And when I say learn anything, whether or not either one of them can shed some light on the other so that you. So that you see it from a different perspective. And so that's what I take from this passage, and that's what I've always taken from this passage, is that it has a lot of similarities to the events that took place at Pentecost, and that those similarities could give us some fresh insights into how Pentecost took place, into how that affects us today, into who? Into our modern. In our present. You know, I guess that's the best way. I hate using the word modern because in many ways, we're not modern, but in our present church culture, in our present society, and understand things from a powerful perspective. And so it says. So Moses went out, remember, God told him to set aside 70 elders and that they were going to be set aside for the ministry of the people. They're going to help take care of the people's needs, not their spiritual needs in that going and making sacrifices, that's going to be handled by the Levites. These people are going to be the leadership. They're going to be the ones who deal with the societal needs of the people. They are the ones who are going to administer the people. That the administration, in many ways, in the view of the way we do things, are kind of like the Congress for them. And so they're important and they're going to deal with spiritual issues, but they're going to deal with spiritual issues from a governmental perspective. That's the best way for me to describe them to you. Okay. And we see that with Jesus because they're the ones who tried Jesus. They're the ones that Jesus has brought in front of the Sanhedrin. They're the ones that Jesus brought in in front of for them to make a. And I want you to hear this. The decision to crucify Christ was intensely a political decision. In fact, the high priest says it's better that one man die than a whole nation. And so what he's saying is, I'm making this political decision, and I'm using the word political, not in a negative term. I'm using it as, this is the will of the people that we do this. And that's politics. Politics is assessing the will of the people and doing what's in their will. If you don't do that, you end up not being in politics very long. If you do it poorly, you end up not being in politics very long. But politics is to decide kind of the will of the people in the, in the idea that I'm using, and to, to represent them and do that will. And that's what a record, representative republic does, a representative democracy. And so it says. So Moses went out and told the people the words of the Lord, and he gathered the 70 men of the elders of the people and placed them around the tabernacle. So they're there, all gathered together. And then the Lord came down in a cloud and spoke to him. And notice you've got God coming down in a miraculous way, and him speaking to them a common miraculous way, not something that was uncommon. Pentecost was an uncommon way in that they have never experienced God coming down as a divine wind and tongues of fire, but in a divine way anyway. And he comes down and he speaks. So God, it has to do with God speaking out. And he placed the same upon these. He says, then the spirit of the Lord came in a cloud and spoke to him and took the spirit that was upon him, meaning the Holy Spirit's power was upon Moses, and he placed the same upon the 70 elders. And it happened when the spirit rested upon them, that they prophesied, although they never did so again. Now, if you do kind of a language search for this, this word is used for an ecstatic language. It's a static prophecy. It's an ecstatic word, I guess, is the way. Ecstatic word. It's an excited word that comes from them. Now, look, it's in the lexicon. If you kind of study it, it's attributed to actual prophecy. Ezekiel. I mean, we're talking about many, many times, hundreds, hundreds of times. It talks about, it's talked about here as a language that is spoken, comes out and then never happens again. By the way, that's not unusual in the Old Testament. This happened several times in the Old Testament where the spirit comes upon someone and I, and they prophesy using this word, and then they never do it again. Okay. And so that's not, it's not like it's not common. It is common in the Old Testament that this would happen. And so they have this language or this word from God that they prophesy, and then they don't ever do it again. None of them ever do this again. That's what it says. They don't do it again. So it is. So let's just kind of understand it. First of all, does it correlate to Pentecost? Well, it does in that they, the spirit came upon them in a divine way, and they spoke out in whatever, however you want to describe that they spoke out. And in the, in Pentecost, it was in an unknown tongue is. Is how it's described, which means that it was not known to the person speaking. I believe it was known to some of the people that were there. That's why they were speaking in those languages, and that's why people heard them in their own language. Meaning, if you're in a group of people and 20 people are speaking 20 different languages, when you hear English, your ears are going to tune to that, because that's the only thing you understand. I believe they were speaking the languages of the people that were there for the festival, that were from other countries and other parts of the world, which was really common in Israel for that to take place, and that their language preached the gospel to them, and they heard it in their own language, although the person who was speaking it did not know that language. That's what I believe that to mean. And so when that happened, when that happened, the spirit rested upon them and they spoke in that language. People came to a saving understanding of Jesus Christ. They came to an understanding, repented and turned toward him. That's, that's what happened at Pentecost. Here it is for the purpose of recognizing that the spirit of the Lord is on them. This is a, this is evidentiary, evidentiary, it's easy for me to say evidentiary action. It's evidence that the Holy Spirit's upon them and that they have an office, an important office to hold. Okay? And some Pentecostals say you need to do that because of, you need that evidence. I don't necessarily believe that. In fact, I don't believe that. I believe that each gift of the spirit is unique and it's unique for people. And not every person has all the gifts and so you're not going to have, not everybody's going to, in this context, prophesy. I don't, I don't believe that. So it says, but I do believe that the gifts still remain. There's no biblical evidence for them passing away. In fact, in fact there's quite clear evidence that they haven't passed away. And so when the spirit rested upon them, that they prophesied, although they never did so again. Now notice, how do we know God gives us, okay, I'm giving you this as evidence that these guys have my spirit upon them. By the way, in the old testament this word is also used to the prophets of Baal, okay? And then using an ecstatic language. So understand that there's good reason for, you know, you tread lightly with this and not, and not, and not be very forceful on either side of the camp. In the New Testament, in our modern church, or in our present church age, there are those who say that you will not ever have an unknown tongue or a ecstatic language. But Paul said, do not forbid the speaking in tongues. So that's a problem. Are you with me then all the way on the other side of the spectrum you have those who say, well, if you're not speaking in tongues, then you're not redeemed, you're not regenerated. And that's quite clearly not true either. And you can't take that from this. This is evidence that the Holy Spirit's upon them in power. It's not evidence that they are saved because the picture is that they were all delivered out of Egypt, they all went through the blood of the lamb, they all crossed over the Red Sea, which is the picture of baptism. And they all received the word of the Lord on the mountain. Okay? So that's a picture of the whole salvific process, okay? Now, it's not a picture of the power of the Holy Spirit being upon you, which is the, which is entering into the promised land or entering into God's rest as Hebrews would talk about, right? It's not the full picture of that, but it is a picture, okay? It is a picture of it, and it's a picture of God. Evidentiary, giving them evidence that these people are, have the holy spirit's power upon them. And I, the way he makes sure you understand that is two of them didn't come to the meeting, okay? And that's what we find in verse 26, it says, but two of the men remained in the camp, and the name of one of them was Eldad, and the name of the other was Medad. I know there's a lot of jokes we could do with Eldad and me dad, but we got to move on, okay? We ain't got enough time. But it is funny, Eldad and me dad, all right? And the spirit rested upon them. Now, they were among those listed, but they had not gone to the tabernacle yet. They prophesied in the camp. And the young man ran and told Moses and said, el dad and me dad are prophesying in the camp. So they were chosen. They were set aside for this purpose. They didn't come to the meeting. The spirit of the Lord came upon those who were at the meeting and came upon them back in the tents. Hmm. Which means that the whole purpose of this was for evidence that the Holy Spirit was upon them in power. Okay? That's the whole point of it. That's the whole purpose of it. Okay? Now, does that mean that's the whole purpose of it throughout scripture, or if, even if this is what we're talking about, I can't, I can't 100% tell you that this was somebody speaking in an unknown tongue or in a static language because it's used of, of knowledgeable known prophecies in, throughout the rest of the Old Testament, and it points to some of the things that the baal prophets were doing. So my point is, is you can't go down that trail fully and say this is definitely that because it doesn't really tie together. Now, that being said, I think it is a powerful, I think it's a powerful passage to tie off to the New Testament because, you know, there's some similar similarities here. You have them meeting together. You have the spirit of the Lord coming on them in a divine way. You have that. You have them prophesying and then never doing it again as evidence of the power of the Holy Spirit being upon them. By the way, why them? Because they have proven themselves. They've been men of faith. They're chosen because of their great faith. They're chosen because they're people who have lived a long life of doing what God would have them do. They're people of great respect in their Community. They are a political organization. We already talked about that. And so God says, I'm going to place my spirit on them, and I'm going to prove that. I'm going to prove that I can do these things. And so as we kind of go through these things and study them and talk about them, it's got a lot of similarities to Pentecost, but it has a different purpose than Pentecost. Pentecost was for the purpose of evangelism. This is for the purpose of recognizing who the spirit of the Lord is. On. Now, when that had happened, verse 28 says, Joshua, the son of nun. Moses assistant. Joshua, he's a go getter. One of his choice men answered and said, moses, my lord, forbid them. Now, notice Joshua was trying to get him to tell them to stop doing that there. And if you don't think that's common, that's a tie off to today. I don't know what you. I really don't. I really don't have any. I mean, isn't it obvious? And by the way, we're not talking about somebody that's not important. We're not talking about somebody that's not of great significance in scripture. This is Joshua. This is going to be one of the leaders of the people. And so I think it's important that you see that God saying, listen, Joshua, when he was young and he was zealous, and he's fired up, he wanted to make sure everything was done right. And he wasn't sure about this because he'd never seen it before. And so he told Moses, tell these Eldad and me, dad, and boot, whoever it is, dad over there, tell them to be quiet. Which, you know, you have to tie that off today. If you don't. I don't. I don't know where you're at. And he says, so Joshua said, none said that in verse 29. Then Moses said to me, said to him, are you zealous for my sake? When he's saying, are you trying to protect me? It's okay. It's not, that's not that important. And the reason he was zealous is because Moses didn't do it. Moses did not do this. Okay, Moses didn't do it, but the 70 did, which I find interesting also some, so many, you know, on one side you've got Joshua saying, don't let him do it. On the other side you've got Moses saying, hey, listen, are you zones for me? Because I didn't do it. I went and I didn't, I didn't receive that gift. So really the truth is somewhere in the middle. Probably shouldn't tell them not to do it if it's coming from God. Second of all, not everybody's going to do it. Joshua didn't do it. Moses didn't do it. Just the 70 day. Are you following me? Are we on the same page? Kind of. Here. Moses and Joshua were very important in the new, in the Old Testament. In fact, Moses is the writer of the first five books. And then the 6th book is named after Joshua. So I mean, these are two important figures discussing this matter here. And as they discuss it, Moses said, are you jet zealous for my sake? Which is a good thing. He's not. This is a, this is really a very intimate, I hate to use the word sweet, but it really is, it's just a, it's a, it's a godly question. Are you, are you worried about May Joshua? Oh, that all the Lord's people were prophets and that the Lord would put his spirit upon, upon them. And Moses is saying, look, this is not a bad thing. And look, it probably be easier to lead these folks, Joshua, if the spirit of the Lord was upon them all. But why isn't the spirit of the Lord upon them? Why didn't God give it to everybody? Well, let me tell you why. Because they didn't walk by faith. Does he give all the gifts to everybody who does walk by faith? No, but when you walk by faith, God comes upon you in power, and when he comes upon you in power, your gifts are empowered by that and they become evident and they become energized and they go out and are used by you for kingdom work. And so this is one of those gifts. This is a gift. It's an evidentiary gift here, look, I use that word well, it's an evidentiary gift here and it's a gift in the New Testament for evangelism. So, and also, I believe in the New Testament is, it's used for prayer and intercession. But that being said, it's not something that everybody has. It's not something that nobody has. It is somewhat important. You have the important people that kind of lead Israel in many respects for many, many years. Their whole order began with this event. You have Moses and Joshua discussing it, which are two great figures in scripture. You really have a culmination of important ideas and understandings that are coming out of this that we can get some light for, for the New Testament. We can, we can gain some light and understanding. Now, we can't be dogmatic about it. We get, these are not hills to down, but they are important ideas and understandings that kind of shed light on how God works and how God takes care of his people. I want you to notice that intertwined in this, you've got the people whining about not getting meat, God setting up a leadership structure to take care of the people, God's holy spirit moving and God providing for his people. And so I think there's some things that we can learn about that, that take us to the New Testament. And so this is a really important chapter in scripture. We've got one more, one more little section to deal with, and then we've got some other things that are going to be dealt with next week that I think are very important and give us insight as to how we are to be as a church in the times that we live in. And so what a great opportunity to kind of look through scripture and allow God to kind of show us some things that if you've never read through numbers, you would have never seen or known. And numbers is a, as I said, as we went into it, it's not a boring book. It's a, it's a powerful, exciting, really, group of stories about how God works.

As you go today, I pray that the Lord will bless you and keep you, that he'll make his face to shine upon you, and that he will give you hope and peace today in Jesus name.