July 17, 2011
Most of us know that Moses was a man called by God to seek the liberation of the Israelites during a time when they were subjugated by the Egyptians. After the Israelite Exodus, however, the role of Moses evolved from political liberationist to something we now call a Prophet. In our text today, Moses, arguably the author of Numbers, describes for us details concerning this widely misunderstood title and radicalized office known as Prophet. In particular, our text teaches us three lessons: It teaches us about…
- The Prophetic Calling,
- The Prophetic Duties, and…
- Prophetic Importance and Relevance
Let's begin by better understanding how it is one receives the office or position of Prophet. In verses 16 and 17, we see God coming to Moses and endowing His Spirit upon Him. Later on in verse 29, Moses even explicitly says that a Prophet is indeed a Prophet because God's Spirit is upon that individual.
What this means is that the Prophetic Calling (that is, the call necessary to become a Prophet) is a product of God's gracious and Sovereign election: God has graciously chosen Moses, for whatever Sovereign reasons, to receive His Spirit and in doing so, carry out a series of duties that all the other Prophets in the Bible had to carry out.
In an even simpler rephrasing, this would be to say that life as a Prophet began, prolonged, was sustained by, and ended with God's Sovereign and elective grace; life as a Prophet cannot be something achieved or acquired but it is something simply and cosmically endowed, regardless of what a man did (e.g. murder a fellow kinsman like Moses) or where a man came from (e.g. a microscopic town called Bethlehem like David the King).
Thus the Prophet, regardless of what it is he had to do (and I say "he" because all OT prophets were men), was to perform his duties driven by grace. Now most of us have a difficult time understanding that kind of life because most of us are driven by so many different things like dreams, goals, hopes, safety, comfort, ambitions, credentials, etc. -- however, if you could imagine living life driven by grace, it would be sort of like living as a homeless person who lives off of the free-giving of other people. Could you live like that -- is it possible for you, in light of all of your hopes and dreams, to live life like a homeless person, fueled utterly by grace and grace alone?
Well, as you ask yourself that, let's continue and discuss what a Sovereignly chosen and Spirit-filled Prophet was supposed to do…
The Prophetic Duties
Prophets throughout the OT, regardless of minor differences, were all responsible for four major duties:
(1) Firstly, all Prophets were chosen by grace to receive God's Word: The first five words of verse 16 say "The LORD said to Moses…" In other words, if ever in your reading of the OT you come across a character who actively receives God's Word, there is a 25% chance that such a character is actually a prophet because the first duty of a prophet is to receive the Word of God.
(2) Secondly, not only were all Prophets graciously chosen to receive God's Word, they were also chosen to proclaim the very Words gave Him: The first three words in verse 18, following verses 16 and 17 wherein God proclaims a message to Moses, say "Tell the people…" Therefore, it was also the Prophet's duty to proclaim the Word that God had given.
(3) Thirdly, upon receiving the Word of God and proclaiming all that God desires to be proclaimed through him, a Prophet was also obligated to do whatever it was that God desired Him to do. Now all Israelites, following Mount Sinai, would have been obligated to the Mosaic Law; however, Prophets were also obligated not only to God's Laws but to God's commissions -- in verses 16 and 17, God commissions Moses to do something (gather the elders of Israel around the Tabernacle) and in verse 24, after some irreverent cajoling with God (verses 21-23), Moses does precisely what God commissioned Him to do.
(4) And fourthly, the Prophet was called to guide (and sometimes govern) the people of God towards a future. Because of previous Prophecies, Moses and the Israelites know their ultimate destination -- the rich and luscious Promised Land; however, in the process of getting to the Promised Land, Israel encounters numerous amounts of challenges, difficulties, tensions, and struggles.
In verse 28 and 29, we see tension amongst the Israelites over two elders who didn't even gather at the Tabernacle but were given the ability to Prophesize. And out of his obligation as a Prophet, Moses reconciles the conflict by wishing that all of Israel, not merely the elders, would become Prophets of the LORD… which leads us to our final lesson of the day.
Prophetic Importance and Relevance
The reason why the calling and duties of a Prophet are important to you and I today is because of verse 29, wherein Moses says, "…I wish that all the LORD's people were prophets and that the LORD would put his Spirit on them!" Now, is there another instance in Scriptures where the Holy Spirit comes upon some person or some people and he or they suddenly begin to proclaim the Word of God? Indeed, there are two places where this happens:
(1) The first place the Spirit comes upon someone in a fashion very similar to the glory cloud in verse 25 is in Matthew 3:16-17, "And when Jesus was baptized, immediately he went up from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him; and behold, a voice from heaven said, 'This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.'" (ESV)
Jesus Christ was and is the ultimate prophet. In fact, so much so that after His death, even before His resurrection, His disciples call him this, "Concerning Jesus of Nazareth, a man who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people…" (Luke 24:19) And the reasons they said this was because of the following:
(1.1) Christ was chosen by Himself to proclaim Himself, even before the creation of the world to become the greatest prophet ever -- an election that cannot be matched as Jesus was not merely an earthly Prophet but therefore a heavenly Prophet; and as the heavenly Prophet, Jesus ultimately and eternally fulfills the duties of the earthly Prophets:
(1) While earthly Prophets were called to receive the Word of God, John tells us in John 1:1-4 that Jesus Christ is and was the Word, simply made flesh.
(2) While earthly Prophets were called to proclaim the Word they received, Jesus Christ powerfully proclaims Himself saying "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me" (John 14:6 NIV).
(3) While earthly Prophets were called to obey God temporally, even with some bantering as was the case with Moses, Jesus Christ submits eternally to the will of the Father -- even to the point of death upon a cross. Mark accounts Jesus' prayer in Gethsemane like so: He went on a little farther and fell to the ground. He prayed that, if it were possible, the awful hour awaiting him might pass him by. "Abba, Father," he cried out, "everything is possible for you. Please take this cup of suffering away from me. Yet I want your will to be done, not mine." (Mark 14:35-36 NLT)
(4) And while earthly Prophets were called to temporarily guide and lead God's people, Christ will forever guide and lead God's people as the Head of the church and as the King of God's truly chosen people.
(1.2) Therefore, because Christ is the ultimate and heavenly Prophet, after His death and resurrection we have the end of the age of prophecy and the beginning of a new age of prophets -- since Christ not only completely but eternally filled and fulfilled the duties of the Prophet, He is now the last and greatest Prophet.
This means that when there is talk of prophets and prophecy following the death and resurrection of Christ, the position carries a new meaning. For instance, Paul says this in Ephesians 3:4-6, "4 When you read this, you can perceive my insight into the mystery of Christ, 5 which was not made known to the sons of men in other generations as it has now been revealed to his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit. 6 This mystery is that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel."
(2) What Paul is suggesting is that there are prophets today -- in fact, Moses' desire for all of God's people to become prophets actually came true: All of God's people were given the Spirit of God and chosen, like the Prophets of the OT, completely out of God's sovereign and gracious election through Jesus Christ.
The image we see in the first church on the Pentecost where the Spirit of God comes down like fire is another reflection of what happened here in our main text in Numbers; however, apart from the fact that the Spirit came down out of sovereign grace, there were and now are some differences in the duties of the new age of Prophets:
(1) Firstly, as the Prophets of the OT were called to receive the Word of God, so too are the Prophets today called to receive the Word of God -- if you have not received, therefore, the true Word of God, Jesus Christ, then this is your first duty as a Prophet of the LORD. You must receive the Word of God made flesh and then, upon doing so, receive the Word of God written, here in our Bibles.
Why are you to read the Bible continuously? Some people think it is because doing so is good for you and that doing so will build you up or strengthen you or protect you; however, the focus of reading the Bible for these reasons is none but you and yourself. And if you read and receive God's Word in this manner, then everything you read is going to be about you and how you can continue idolizing yourself instead of "idolizing" Christ, the true Word of God; many of you have stopped reading this because you keep thinking, "What does this all have to do with me?" But it is no coincidence that John calls Christ the Word made flesh and that Christ tells the disciples on the road to Emmaus that all of Scripture concerns him -- you must receive, therefore, a Word centered on Christ and not yourself.
(2) Secondly, as the Prophets of the OT were called to proclaim the Word of God, so too are the Prophets of today; however, what this now means is that we are to proclaim Jesus Christ crucified and resurrected.
Some may argue that the proclamation of Christ is reserved only for those who are called to do so -- I will say this in response: regardless of my beliefs on the matter of ordination and its importance, if you hear good news, you will simply want to share it, especially with those you care most about. Thus why the Gospel literally means "The Good News," because when you hear it, it's because someone else heard it and felt that this news was so good that you ought to hear it as well. But for the goodness of the Gospel to cease there, is to say that the Gospel is not necessarily good news at all but instead decent news or news that is good for the time being. However, this is not the case for the Gospel of Christ -- the Gospel of Christ is eternally good and therefore, if you've heard it and hear it now, it is your duty to proclaim it to others; the means of doing so may differ for us all but the ends must remain the same: Christ must be proclaimed for you are now a prophet in His name.
(3) Thirdly, as the Prophets of the OT were called to obey the commissions of God, going here, doing this, avoiding that -- so, too, are you and I called to do the same.
This may sound simple at first but if you get to a certain maturity in your spiritual growth, you will see how true indeed the following notion is: I struggled for quite some time with why a Christian needs to do Christian things -- why do we need to think, talk, behave, date, study, spend money, and respond in ways different from the rest of the world? Sometimes, it's simply because it is your job and your duty.
I once worked at Goodwill for several months, working in the backroom, cleaning every form of a dirty mess. Some of the things my boss told me to do were horrible -- cleaning the bathrooms or cleaning out the dumpster outside; yet as horrendous as some of these duties were, my motivation for doing them was simply because that was my job. Granted, some of us can be motivated by finances and do our jobs well for money; however, the duty and job of obeying God's commissions as a Prophet in Christ's name is fueled not only by the fact that it is your job as a Prophet, but by the foundational premise by which we exist: it can never be forgotten or neglected that Prophets exist simply because of the grace of God and His sovereign choice to freely and lovingly give you His eternal grace in Jesus Christ. Therefore, when God commands us through His Word, we obey because we are driven by the grace He gave us and revealed to us upon the cross.
(4) And lastly, as the Prophets of the OT were called to guide and govern God's people, so too are you and I to do the same; however, under the headship of Christ.
This church and in fact all churches are not (or at least ought not to be) headed by a pastor, although it may seem like it. Our group here at EKC is not governed by myself or constructed by my vision and my plans; this church ought to persist because of you -- because you are called to be a Prophet in Christ's name and to govern and guide God's people -- not to a Promised Land but to something even better: God's only Begotten Son, Jesus Christ.
Therefore, if you are here and are making no contributions to this place, it is either clear that you are not a Prophet of the LORD in Jesus Christ or that your commitment to your duties as a Prophet are questionable at best.
Conclusion
You are no longer a member of this world or a citizen of this culture; instead, you are a born-again Prophet in Jesus Christ, called by God's gracious election to receive Christ, to proclaim Christ, to serve Christ, and to protect Christ's church. So may you honor your duties today and forevermore as a Prophet of a the Heavenly Prophet, Jesus Christ, in whose name we now pray.