Rev. Don Campbell
Numbers 11-13
THOUGHT FOR TODAY, FEBRUARY 28, 2019
GOD AS A WITNESS
In today’s reading, we see the people complaining about the menu. As slaves, they had cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions, and garlic. “Give us meat” they demanded. God would give them meat until it became repulsive to them (10:4-6; 18-20).
Their complaining became so burdensome that Moses also complained, “I am not able to carry all this people alone; the burden is too heavy for me. If you will treat me like this, kill me at once, if I find favor in your sight, that I may not see my wretchedness” (11:14-15).
God heard Moses and said, “Gather for me seventy men of the elders of Israel, whom you know to be the elders of the people and officers over them, and bring them to the tent of meeting, and let them take their stand there with you. And I will come down and talk with you there. And I will take some of the Spirit that is on you and put it on them, and they shall bear the burden of the people with you, so that you may not bear it yourself alone” (11:16-17).
An interesting statement is found in 11:25: The 70 were gathered and the Spirit came upon them and they prophesied, but they did not continue doing it. If this meant that they just briefly received the empowering Spirit to give them the wisdom to bear the burden with Moses, then the help was short-lived. The miraculous manifestation occurred only once, but the empowerment continued.
Upon the coming of the Holy Spirit in Acts 2:1-5, the apostles were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in tongues. Peter said that this was a prophecy from Joel and included sons, daughters, young men, old men, and even servants. There are only two other occasions in Acts when tongues are mentioned. The first is in Acts 10 when the first Gentiles to receive the gospel spoke in tongues. Both Peter and the believing Jews who were with him were amazed that the Spirit had been poured out on the Gentiles.
When Peter is called on the carpet to explain his preaching to Gentiles, he responded: “As I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell on them just as on us at the beginning. And I remembered the word of the Lord, how he said, ‘John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’ If then God gave the same gift to them as he gave to us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could stand in God’s way?” When they heard these things they fell silent. And they glorified God, saying, ‘Then to the Gentiles also God has granted repentance that leads to life’” (Acts 11:15-18). The next occurrence is in Acts 19:5-6 when 12 men who had been baptized with John’s baptism after the outpouring of the Spirit in Acts chapter two were baptized in the name of Jesus and began to speak in tongues.
There is no evidence that any of those who received the Spirit and spoke in tongues on these three occasions (Day of Pentecost, the conversion of Cornelius, and the baptism of the 12) continued speaking in tongues as a normative practice for the church. These three occurrences seem to follow the example in Numbers 11:25 in which the 70 prophesied but did not continue to do so. The purpose in all four examples was God’s testimony that the events under consideration met with his approval. The writer of Hebrews spoke of the danger of neglecting the great salvation which “was declared at first by the Lord, and it was attested to us by those who heard, while God also bore witness by signs and wonders and various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will” (Hebrews 2:3-4).
Once the gospel was confirmed and the first generation of the church had reached maturity, able to edify and reproduce itself, supernatural gifts were no longer needed. Paul expressed it this way: “Love never comes to an end. There is the gift of speaking what God has revealed, but it will no longer be used. There is the gift of speaking in other languages, but it will stop by itself. There is the gift of knowledge, but it will no longer be used. Our knowledge is incomplete and our ability to speak what God has revealed is incomplete. But when what is complete comes, then what is incomplete will no longer be used” (1 Corinthians 13:8-10), God’s Word Version).
CONNECTIONS – Hebrews 7:27, 9:12, 9:26, Luke 16:30-31
1. Compare the phrase” once for all delivered” to the saints (Jude 3)y with the same words in Hebrews 7:27, 9:12, 9:26; 10:10. By what rule of interpretation could one say that the phrase means one thing in Jude and something else in Hebrews?
2. Some suggest that the miraculous gifts are needed today because people are rejecting the written word. What would Abraham say to them? (Luke 16:30-31)
