Reading in Numbers 11 and it’s pretty apparent that Moses hits the wall. After about a year hanging out around Mt. Sinai . . . seeing the glory of God resting on the mount . . . receiving the word of God . . . building the dwelling place for God in their midst . . . it’s time for Moses and the people of Israel to head out and go do some “promise land claiming” (Numbers 10:11-36). So off they go with anticipation inside them and with the cloud of the presence of the Lord over. But things seem to go south pretty quickly. The people start to complain (again!) . . . and God’s anger is kindled against them . . . and Moses says, “That’s it! I’m max’d. Can’t deal with it anymore. The burden of these people is too heavy for me. Either I get some help, Lord, or maybe it’s time for You to just take me outta here” ( he kinda says that ) (Num. 11:1-15).

God responds to Moses with a plan to “take some of the Spirit” that has rested on Moses and put it on 70 men recognized as elders among the nation so that this larger cohort might “help bear the burden of the people with you, so that you may not bear it yourself alone” (Num. 11:16-17). Here’s where it gets really interesting.

Looks like 68 of the 70 chosen men gather with Moses around the tent of meeting and there the LORD comes down in a cloud, takes some of the Spirit that’s been resting on Moses, and puts it on the elders. And, as evidence of this divine empowering, “as soon as the Spirit rested on them, they prophesied” (11:25). But two of these elders didn’t set their watch and were late getting to the party. They were still in the camp, still in “general population”, when the Spirit was given and so they prophesied in the midst of a crowd. And it creates quite a stir . . . up until then, only Moses was declaring the Word of the Lord. And, upon being informed of this . . .

. . . Joshua the son of Nun, the assistant of Moses from his youth, said, “My lord Moses, stop them.” But Moses said to him, “Are you jealous for my sake? Would that all the LORD’s people were prophets, that the LORD would put His Spirit on them!”    (Numbers 11:28-29 ESV)

So . . . this sounds kind of familiar. On Wednesday night, at our men’s Bible study we were talking through the prophet Joel. And there, the Lord through Joel declares,

And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions.    (Joel 2:28 ESV)

And so what Moses said would be a “nice to have” . . . the Lord declares will be a reality . . . and then you pop into Acts 2 and there Peter says its fulfillment began on the day of Pentecost when those waiting in Jerusalem were filled with the Holy Spirit. And while the complete and literal fulfillment of this “dream team” desire of Moses is yet to be realized, isn’t the church kind of a pilot project?

Paul says that when we entered the body of the redeemed . . . by grace alone . . . through faith alone (Eph. 2:8-9) . . . that when we were adopted into the family of God . . . that then we also “in one Spirit were all baptized into one body . . . and all were made to drink of one Spirit” (1Cor. 12:13). Upon hearing the word of truth, the gospel of our salvation, and believing in Him, we “were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance” (Eph. 1:13-14). And that, having received the Spirit, we are being led into all truth through His ministry of illumination such that we might grow in understanding of Him who saved us . . . that we might actually possess the mind of Christ (1Cor. 2:9-16). And the result is that we “prophecy” in the sense that we speak and share the word of God . . . we “dream dreams” in the sense of thinking things that are only possible to be thought of by the work of the Spirit within us . . . and we “see visions” in the sense that the Spirit makes the things of God and of heaven so real, we can, through the eye of faith, see them and experience them.

Is it too off kilter to think of ourselves, in a sense, as God’s pilot project foreshadowing a day when the Spirit will be poured out on all flesh . . . and all with be filled with the knowledge of God, His word written on their hearts? I’m thinking not. What privilege . . . what responsibility . . .

Who is sufficient for these things? . . . Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God.
(2Corinthinas 2:16b, 3:5 ESV).

To Him be glory in and through the church . . .