The story is told of a couple who invited several people to dinner. After all of the immense amount of work, the wife sat down at the table and turned to her six-year-old daughter and said, “Would you like to say the blessing?” “I wouldn't know what to say,” the little girl replied. Her mother answered, “Just say what you hear Mommy say.” The daughter bowed her head and said, “Lord, why on earth did we invite all of these people to dinner?”
Oh, how sometimes the “truth” slips out! The time comes when our cover-ups don't accomplish what we expect. But when Jesus puts out an invitation, He really means it and never regrets it. All through the gospel accounts, He invites fishermen and tax collectors to follow Him, sinners to come away from their sin and live in His holiness, and for the coming together of a bride to a glorious wedding feast.
In Revelation 19:7-9, we read, “Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honor to Him: for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and His wife hath made herself ready. And to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white: for the fine linen is the righteousness of the saints. And He saith unto me, Write, Blessed are they which are called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb...” What a blessed invitation! And yet, all through the Scriptures, from Genesis to Revelation, we find the essence of this blessedness—the call to true freedom in Jesus Christ. In recent weeks, our church has been focusing on two parallel pathways to freedom, one from the Old Testament and one from the New Testament. First, the people of Israel were freed from bondage in Egypt, and set on a path through the wilderness. In fact, repeatedly Pharaoh was told why God wanted His people set free—to serve Him in the wilderness after a three day journey. Specifically, it would be a time of sacrifice and worship—they were to be worshipers in the wilderness. But so far, every time the people hit a bump in the road, worship was the last thing they felt like doing—they complained and became obstinate!
That, of course, was not God's intention for His people—not then, not now! In Numbers 11, the people had just complained about the food supply. To help Moses and Aaron deal with this troublesome lot, seventy men were appointed as elders. Verse 25 tells us, “And the Lord came down in a cloud, and spake unto him (Moses), and took of the spirit that was upon him, and gave it unto the seventy elders: and it came to pass, that, when the spirit rested upon them, they prophesied, and did not cease.” The word for prophesying doesn't just suggest a telling of the future, but a speaking forth of the Word of God, which the people would need right then. It was a word spoken for the benefit of another. But then this happened—”But there remained two of the men in the camp, the name of the one was Eldad, and the name of the other Medad: and the spirit rested upon them; and they were of them that were written, but went not out unto the tabernacle: and they prophesied in the camp.” (vs.26)
Wycliffe's Bible Commentary suggests, “Rather than assuming that these two are disobedient members of the seventy, who had not gone out with the rest, these were two of the many registered princes-over-the-thousands, responsible for leader-ship and transcription. This gift upon them was entirely unexpected.” You see, the context of the situation suggests that besides the seventy blessed with the Spirit, now two more were found to be so blessed. And then it happened—when Moses was told about it, Joshua, his trusted assistant, declared, “My lord Moses, forbid them. And Moses said unto him, Enviest thou for my sake? Would God that all the Lord's people were prophets, and that the Lord would put His spirit upon them!” (vss. 28,29) Praise God—Moses was not a demagogue or an elitist—he knew the blessing of spirit-filled worship was calling all out of the grasp of a wandering mentality.
Matthew Henry reports that Eldad, whose name means “God has loved,” and Medad—referring to a sense of loving and affection, were, “found then in the camp, and there they exercised their gift of praying, preaching and praising God; they spake as moved by the Holy Ghost. The Spirit of God is not confined to the tabernacle, but, like the wind, blows where it listeth. And they that humble themselves shall be exalted; and those that are most fit for government, are least ambitious for it.” Yes, Joshua thought it was best to nip this in the bud—not because he wanted to see the two new prophets punished, but to avoid a schism. His zeal was for unity, but Moses understood that God was calling for worshipers, not wanderers. Almost immediately, the wind brings in the quail—millions of them. They spent days gathering them, but without any repentance for their complaining or gluttony. And then came a plague as their punishment for ignoring the invitation to a precious intimacy with the Holy One! They had been endowed—by virtue of the seventy men, not to mention the other two—with the power of the Holy Spirit for worship, but preferred a wandering spirit.
A little later, at Mt. Sinai, God laid out the future and its blessing, “I will raise them up a Prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee, and will put my words in His mouth; and He shall speak unto them all that I shall command Him.” (Deut. 18:18) Praise God—this Prophet—capital “P”—is clearly Jesus Christ! (John 6:14;7:40) During His ministry, when the disciples were asking which of them would be considered the greatest, John spoke up and said, “Master, we saw one casting out devils in thy name; and we forbad him, because he followeth not with us. And Jesus said unto him, Forbid him not: for he that is not against us is for us.” (Luke 9:49-50) Now, of course, this doesn't suggest that there should be unity at any cost, just to get along with everybody. No, true unity must be in the Holy Spirit, and the purity and holiness He alone can bring.
Praise God—wandering stops and worship starts as we allow for the fullness of the Spirit in our hearts and in our lives. Chris Tiegreen raises the issue in one of his devotional books—”The question we must all consider is how much intensity we will accept in our relationship with God. He sent Jesus to us, and Jesus sent His Spirit into us. What are you asking of the Lord? God will draw you as close as you want to get. If you ask Him to back off, sadly He will—for a time. If you ask for a deeper, closer relationship, you'll find that He wants it even more than you do.” Jim Elliot, one of the five martyred missionaries in South America back in the 1950's, knew this blessing—”Oh, the fullness, pleasure, sheer excitement of knowing God on earth!” Praise God—and now he knows an even greater blessing in Heaven! Missionary to China, Hudson Taylor, once said, “All God's giants have been weak men who did great things for God because they reckoned on His being with them.” The indwelling Holy Spirit will bring an end to the wandering in the wilderness with the joy of worship! Henry Blackaby once wrote, “Jesus prayed that you would have the same joy that the Father had given Him: a divine joy, a joy that comes from a deep and unwavering relationship with the Father...that no change in circumstance could ever shake it.” When Father's Day rolls around, don't forget this truth!
Three days in the wilderness; the tomb was empty! Luke 24:36-37 tells us, “...Jesus Himself stood in the midst of them, and saith unto them, Peace be unto you. But they were terrified and affrighted, and supposed that they had seen a spirit.” In a sense, they had, for they had met the One who would send them the Holy Spirit, even in the midst of their fearful times of wandering. In John, we are specifically told, “And when He had said this, He breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost.” (20:22) The late David Wilkerson once declared, “It touches my heart deeply that Jesus' last words before He left His disciples were words of blessing. Luke says, 'Then opened He their understanding, that they might understand the Scriptures'..and then, '...He blessed them.'”(24:45,51) As with the seventy elders, Medad, and Eldad, the disciples are now touched by the Spirit—now born-again and invited to Pentecost; an immersion into that Spirit for holy worship in this life. Andrew Murray once wrote, “Let us ask Him to show us what Holiness is, His Holiness first, and then our Holiness; to show us how He has set His heart upon it as the one thing He wants to see in us, as being His own image and likeness; to show us, too, the unutterable blessedness and glory of sharing with Christ in His Holiness. Oh! That God by His Spirit would teach us what it means that we are called to be holy as He is holy. We can easily conceive what mighty influence that would exert!” Can we? What an invitation!!! He, and we, will never regret it—both Moses and Jesus didn't want to be the only ones filled with the Spirit—it is for all! Oh, what freedom!!!
